


as the images unwind

by djemso



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Aftermath of Torture, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst with a Happy Ending, Canon-Typical Violence, Communication Failure, Depression, Digestion Issues, Emotional Manipulation, Everyone Is Walking Wounded, Gen, Identity Issues, Internalized blame, M/M, Medium Slow Burn, Mentions of Peggy Carter/Steve Rogers - Freeform, Panic Attacks, Possible Gaslighting, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Sassy Old Ladies, Suicidal Thoughts
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-08-22
Updated: 2015-04-06
Packaged: 2018-02-14 04:56:38
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 34,013
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2178750
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/djemso/pseuds/djemso
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The last thing Steve expects to see when he comes to Brooklyn a year and  half after the battle of New York is his dead best friend trying to juggle a grocery bag and find his keys at the same time.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. how did summer go so quickly

**Author's Note:**

> While stuck in the land of no internet or textbooks, I felt the urge to write something. It somehow turned into the outline and first two chapters of this story. It wouldn't get out of my head, so I decided to clean it up a bit and post it. I'm not 100% happy with it, but I like the line so I'm going with it.
> 
> The story itself is inspired by going up to an assisted living home to visit a cousin and finding out someone who lived in his street when he was young still came to visit. I thought this was something Steve would do. Then it turned into a Winter Soldier AU, based on the idea the Winter Soldier broke away from HYDRA in the disarray after the Battle of New York and set up shop the only place vaguely familiar to figure it out while trying to keep HYDRA at bay.
> 
> The first chapter is heavily Steve and setting up his headspace, but it will alternate between them and show Bucky's background in this verse too.

Despite what certain media outlets and Tony Stark's twitter feed has tried to tell people, Steve Rogers was not pining for the good old days.

For a start, the good old days were only a year or so ago. The so called good old days were split between a little place in Brooklyn with thin walls that never had enough heating in the winter and army accommodation or tents around the European Theatre. He wasn't what people seemed to want to make him out to be. There was no reason for people to make comments asking him if he missed the days when men were men and women were women, because men and women had always been self-defined in their neighborhood and decent people respected that.

When it came to the modern age, there were a lot of things Steve loved about it. He loved the food, which made consuming the mass amounts needed to keep his body running a lot more enjoyable than it had been during the army days. The internet was so helpful, particular on smartphones if you were hit by a pop culture reference or got lost in an area you used to know. The sheer volume of media was startling and he could feel like a wide eyed child again by watching how animation had developed. The advances in healthcare, though still not as widely available as it should be, meant a lot to someone who spent most of their life dragged down by their health.

There wasn't a lot he missed about the forties all told, except for the people. He missed the people as if a limb had been ripped from him. If he could have wrapped up the Commando's, Peggy, Stark and even Phillips and brought them as they had been then into this world to experience it with him, Steve was sure there would be only one thing he would truly miss in the twenty-first century . It was the same person he'd expected to find waiting with his mother when he put the plane down and the same person he couldn't bring up easily to anyone. His life was a textbook, but so few people were left that understood the life behind the words.

In almost every new thing he experienced, Steve could hear the ghost of his best friend (of the man he loved) making smart comments somewhere in the recesses of his mind. He could feel the ghost of home choking him at every corner. The Brooklyn streets still held enough familiarity to overlap, but every time he expected to see Mrs McGuinness giving her grandsons a ticking off or found himself hoping Charlie upstairs would be in because he couldn't find his key again, it felt like a kick to the stomach.  

Steve did not settle back in Brooklyn.

He moved to Washington D.C. to wait for his ghosts to lay down and rest in peace.

 

* * *

 

Life assumed a rhythm of work, preparing for work and the occasional drawing class that  Steve had no attention span for.

SHIELD was as close to the SSR as he could get, and they kept him busy. He often worked with Natasha Romanoff, who was a neutral but playful force in his life. There was an easy camaraderie between them, as she accepted him for who he was and lay no more expectations on him than that.

Peggy's home was close, even if she had laughed when he'd tried to do the right thing and propose. He truly believed that he would have married her, but she maintained she had no patience for breaking in a toy boy at her age. Steve visited her weekly and suffered through the bad days if only to enjoy the good ones enough to make him smile in a bitter sweet way.

He had missed being able to say his goodbyes to Dernier by only months. If the last vestiges of his old life were leaving this world, he wanted the chance to say goodbye and tell them it had been an honour.

 

* * *

 

D.C. had been beginning to feel like home, when Steve was contacted about an upcoming exhibit on Captain America.

It was more about the icon than the man, but they sent over endless materials, from his own sketchbooks to blurry childhood pictures. There would be a section for the Howling Commando's and beautiful artwork had been commissioned to capture them. There were newsreels, videos and tapes both before he had been frozen and long after. Steve had tried not to look up the families when he'd been given their files, as they had buried their loved ones and he didn't want to intrude with fresh grief. Hearing Dugan talk about his son Jimmy following on in his footsteps had reduced him to private, involved tears. They had, for the most part, lead long and lives and still had families shaping the world today. Steve couldn't ask for much better for them.

The new wave of information had proceeded to nag at him for weeks afterwards, before Steve finally gave into the need for closure and booked some time off from SHIELD. He didn't wallow. He made his way back to New York, spoke very briefly to Tony and Miss Potts because it would be rude to ignore them and went back to the ghost filled streets of Brooklyn. A lot of the old atmosphere had drained away but Steve promised himself closure and this was the home he still pictured when he shut his eyes.

It was just a little older, and so was he.

After three days of walking around the neighbourhoods mostly unnoticed, Steve did start to find people would give him a smile or a nod then go about their business. It seemed Brooklyn still took care of their own, even if he had strayed long ago and far away. On the fourth day, Steve found himself staring at a plaque on a building that had long since become a restaurant, declaring it the home of Steven “Captain America” Rogers and James “Bucky” Barnes. It was a particularly surreal image to see that near to the Burger of the Day.

Behind him, Steve heard another ghost. This time of Mrs. Morris, the wife of Mr. Morris who owned the building. She was a severe looking woman and had never been easily charmed, but she had known his mother (she had helped deliver one of Mrs. Morris' daughters when he was a barely a teenager) and she had never been a coddler. Like everyone else in the building, he had once owned several sweaters made by her hand and one given every Christmas. Mrs. Morris was so often found on those steps, needles clacking and telling anyone who loitered that if they had time to hang about, she'd soon give them chores to do.

She meant it too and he could still hear her now.

“Nan!”

At the sound of the embarrassed squeal, Steve turned around and realised that the voice had not been in his head.

There was Mrs. Morris with her eldest daughter, Frances. After a moment, the world shifted and he began to notice that there were differences – Mrs Morris was abnormally tall and this woman was not, she wore her hair in tight braids and this woman had short hair and she was a good maybe twenty years older than Mrs. Morris. Frances' hair was lighter, always patted down and always looking a little frazzled.

This woman was not frazzled, but she was bright red. “I'm so sorry, she doesn't have – Nan, you can't just _give people chores_!”

The woman who was not Mrs. Morris was smiling. It tugged at him, something that pulled through his memory telling him that this was familiar. It was too familiar, but not familiar enough to place. “My Ma used to tell people that,” She responded coolly, before something in Steve's mind clicked and his stomach plummeted out for greener pastures.

“Violet?” The word came out of him unsure, so very Steve Rogers and so little Captain America that it startled him. He was still trying to figure out it the insubordinate punk had been left somewhere in the ice.

Violet – and it was Violet – smiled, “Look a bit different, don't I?”

Steve shook his head. “You look beautiful.” And she did, with her eyes dancing like that and the experiences of eighty years behind her instead of a gangling girl only hitting her teens and complaining that she isn't growing up as quickly as she'd like to.

“Stop loitering about,” Violet said, ushering him towards to the door with surprising force. “Still own the building, so I reckon we can spare a cup of coffee.”

 

* * *

 

 

Violet beamed from across the table, “His Ma helped deliver me, you know.”

Violet Morris, now Violet McQuade, had been born unexpectedly. Mrs Morris hadn't known she'd been pregnant. It was pure luck that she had been talking to Sarah Rogers when she had taken contractions, who had identified what was happening and helped deliver a slightly premature baby girl to her stunned mother. It was the only time he'd ever seen Mrs Morris have a proper expression, but his mother had told him off for saying as much.

She had grown up with a few of the neighbourhood girls, including Rebecca Barnes who despite being two years her junior, had always tried to follow older girls around to find out what was what. Bucky had called the group nosy and with too much time on their hands. Steve was surprised to find out that Rebecca still lived in New York with her husband.

“Married in her fifties,” Violet explained as she took a drink, “Couldn't find no one to put up with that mouth on her before that.”

Steve snorted at that and made the decision that if he ever felt he could face her, he would ask someone at SHIELD to look her up. It was still too raw. He could still hear the screams at night.

Violet told him that she had been a teller before she got married, and had a couple of kids. Much like sister, she had twin boys and then she'd added another for good measure. The young girl turned out to be her Granddaughter, Alice. Alice obviously knew he was and smiled very politely, but mostly looked on exasperation that was more fond than not.

“Anyway, Beattie Braniff said you were skulking around the neighbourhood so I asked Alice to come bring me back down,” Violet said, blowing on her tea and pointedly ignoring Alice making a face and reminding her to take her acid tablet.

Steve opened his mouth to say he wasn't skulking, but it wasn't true – he had been, if only a little. He shrugged and took the hit. Instead the surname caught his notice, “Mark Braniff?”

Violet nodded, “Her step-father. Married Beattie's mother after her sweetheart didn't come back. Lot didn't, and more moved away.”

Steve nodded, appreciating the fact that life had gone on for people here and it seemed like it had been a good enough life for most.

He went back to his place in D.C. with a sense of purpose. This would be able making sure the public would remember the important people in his life, not just a propaganda machine who took down Nazi occultists. He wanted the world to know about the extraordinary people who had done so much for the countries in a time of need, who had done so much for him and who deserved to be remembered.

The size of the Howling Commando's area doubled in size and Bucky's got a complete overhaul. 

The nightmares lessened.

 

* * *

 

Six months passed and Natasha's latest obsession was trying to get him a date.

“I hear there's an open air music performance going on this weekend,” Natasha said, amusement and what seemed like genuine affection colouring her tone. “I'm sure Andrea from Admin would love to go.”

Steve wasn't sure if Natasha was just trying to branch out from the usual chatter or if she genuinely just wanted to help. Maybe it was part of her assignment. Either way, the set ups and leading questions were reminders of double dates and how his last plans for a date had went.

At least this time, he had a retort ready.

“Then you'll have to take her,” Steve said, “I have plans.”

Natasha quirked an eyebrow, “Define plans.”

“Old friend is having a birthday party.” Violet McQuade would be eighty-two years young on Saturday and he had dutifully responded to the e-vite. Though they had not particularly stayed in touch beyond the occasional email, she had promised to dig up some of the old pictures from the neighbourhood for him and he had bought her a sweater as close to her mothers as he could find at short notice.

It felt like the right time to go home again.

“You're calling someone old?” Natasha's smile grew for an instant, then settled into a cool smirk. “I hope the fire department is on alert for that cake.”

 

* * *

 

A few blocks down from the old building was the current home of Violet McQuade.

In the time since Steve had arrived at the party, he had met her boys and a few other Grandchildren who were a little too awestruck for his comfort. He had met Beattie Braniff and her husband, talked to a few of the newer residents of the building with his most patient public voice and helped sing Happy Birthday to one of the few people who remembered a scrawny kid in the place upstairs.

He tried not to think about who was missing.

Despite Natasha's teasing, he'd enjoyed most of the afternoon. Sometimes, it struck him that he was stuck between sharing memories and times with people three times his physical age but was still too young to understand and share their lives completely. He didn't belong to either world. He wasn't sure what the serum would do to his ageing, if anything. He found himself wondering if he would have ever have something like this, surrounded by grandchildren who can't sit still and telling stories about jumping out of airplanes.

Steve said his thank you to his hosts and tried to make a quiet exit while the kids took cake. Violet disappeared, saying goodbyes at the door to get him apiece of cake to take with him despite his protestations. She had mercifully closed the door over to drown out the din. He leaned against the wall opposite the door, trying to ease himself away from stories about his childhood home and back into the present, where he had a stack of emails for the STRIKE team mission waiting in his email back at the hotel.

At the end of the hall, something caught his eye and his heart froze all over again.

At the end of the hall, the familiar figure seemed to search his pocket for his keys. Without warning, he turned and met Steve's eye.

_Bucky?_

 

* * *

 

“You alright there?”

Violet's voice from the doorway startled Steve out of his shock. He had been seeing things. He had to be. Bucky had died at the bottom (hopefully before he hit the bottom) of a ravine almost seventy years before. He was not wearing overgrown clothes and juggling a wet paper grocery bag in Brooklyn. It wasn't how he carried himself. It wasn't -- it wasn't real.

“Yeah,” Steve said, shaking his head. He, like a lot of the party guests, had a lot rattling around in his head and too many ghosts following him. It was natural when talking so much about them here that he'd think he saw someone he didn't. He glanced back at the man at the door, but it was already shutting and locking. “Sorry, I'm fine. Thank you for the cake.”

Violet studied him for a moment, before poking her head out the door and looking to see what he had glanced at. Guess she still had that nosy streak. “You saw him, didn't you?”

Steve blinked and played dumb. “Who?”

Violet seemed to ignore that, “He moved not long after I saw you wandering about. Dead ringer, aint he? Nice kid, but he's not got Barnes' charm. European, from the accent. Not really a people person.”

The world seemed to turn itself upside down again, then shuddered. For a minute, it felt as if Steve had his old lungs back and he was gasping. He barely noticed Alice pushing a glass of water into his hand until he was drinking it back automatically. He wasn't the only one who had seen him. That meant he wasn't a hallucination or a stray memory trying to place itself.

 “I'd have said something if I thought he'd be about,” Violet seemed to be appraising him with sympathy, and something inside Steve bristled at that. “He usually doesn't come out much during the day. We get a few complaints-” she lowered her voice, “-screams in the night, stuff breaking, but he's a vet, still a bit fatigued, so we don't say much. Keep meaning to give him a pamphlet for one of those counselling places, have it around here some place...”

Steve couldn't trust his voice. He simply stared at back at the door and gave an absent nod, “I'm fine, really.” He gave an apologetic smile, which she waved off before rooting around in the drawers of the old cabinets.

“Shocked me too first time I saw him,” Violet said. “Got Alice to look up some of the pictures from that exhibit that's opening and even she said that they look a lot alike. Don't suppose he could've knocked up some local when you lot were flitting about Europe punching Hitler?”

There was a chorus of “Mom”, “Ma” and “Nan” from beyond the door that not only confirmed that other people had heard their conversation but that they were listening in. At least they couldn't see his grimace at that.

“It's not – impossible.” He grunted out, because it was true. He'd never been happy with Bucky's dates but Buck'd always sworn nothing had ever gone that far. Maybe he was just trying to spare his feelings, considering his body then wasn't reliable enough to do half the things he wanted within almost killing him. Maybe he hadn't wanted Steve to feel even more useless. But that wasn't the whole story either.

After the serum, it had always been Bucky who had kept things slower and pushed him to a distance one minute then was unable to get close enough the next. If he'd gone out with the Commando's and had a few, had come back smelling like perfume, then Steve had told himself it was better than watching him almost vibrate out of his skin half the night or working out a system for keeping quiet in enemy territory if he started screaming or repeating that same (name, rank, number) phrase in his sleep again.

If this was what he needed to get through, he wouldn't begrudge him something that didn't mean anything at all. Not when he seemed to accept Peggy as something that wasn't a passing crush. They'd always said they'd talk about it later. But even if he had gotten careless with some girl, what were the chances of the (damn it, it would be grandchild, wouldn't it?) showing up at this building at this exact time when he did? It was about as likely as a man surviving sixty plus years as a human icicle.

“Here,” She shoved the leaflet into his hands, as she grabbed the drained glass out of it. Somehow, she had not mellowed with age. “You could give him that and ask him. He might take it better from a soldier, men can be funny about these things.”

It was the last words that came out before Alice's father managed to say thank you and get the door shut, though he could still hear her saying that she'd say what she liked and if they didn't like it, they could lump it.

Though Steve had never had much of a flight instinct, he damn near ran from the building to clear his head. 

 

* * *

 

On the other side of the door, the (man) weapon formerly known as the Winter Soldier dropped the shopping on the floor and leaned back against the (his) door. 

He looked to the windows to calculate an escape route, taking one drawn out breath after another in a futile attempt to control his heart rate and spiking panic. It didn't work. It wasn't _working_.

“Shit.”


	2. neither lost nor found

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The man who was once (still) known as the Winter Soldier had been awake and aware of the last year and half, give or take. It was time calculated in weeks and months with no projected countdown to mission completion.
> 
> To think in terms of days (months) (years?) instead of hours to mission completion was a novelty that had not worn off. 
> 
> He marked the calendar in his safe house (home) every morning with a red pen.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Um wow, I just wanted to say thank you to everyone who read, left kudos and commented on this thing. For something that had been a bit of a whim on holiday, I've honestly really enjoyed writing and editing it and I hope you're enjoying reading it. This chapter is disjointed and stilted, but it's Bucky's story (as the first Chapter was almost wholly Steve's story) and his head isn't in the best place for linear and coherent thought. 
> 
> This chapter deals with potentially triggering things that would come up in the aftermath of the Winter Soldier programming. Most of it isn't explicit, but there is one small scene that is. The tags have been updated, but please check the end notes for potential triggers if you're unsure.
> 
> This part was originally longer, but has been broken up because I didn't want it to vary in size too much and during the editing process, this one ended up twice as long. I've gone through it, but chances are I've missed things so I apologise in advance for any mistakes.

The man who was once (still) known as the Winter Soldier had been awake and aware of the last year and half, give or take. It was time calculated in weeks and months with no projected countdown to mission completion.

To think in terms of days (months) (years?) instead of hours to mission completion was a novelty that had not worn off.

He marked the calendar in his safe house (home) every morning with a red pen.

 

* * *

 

The soldier was not allowed in New York.

A mission had gone awry before and it was a no-fly zone. There had been punishment. This was the part he remembered. He knew that there would be punishment again if he was in New York. Sometimes, this threat was all he could really remember.

His file had been altered to note that any necessary time in New York was to be spent in stasis.

 

* * *

 

The shipping of a living weapon and his accompanying materials was difficult to do on a good day. No one on base referred to the day the aliens invaded New York as a good day, especially not when the debris damaged the backup generators for their base and everything went dark.

In the chaos that ensued, no one had considered checking the cryofreeze until it had been too late.

 

* * *

 

The soldier did not remember waking up.

He did not remember that the base was dark (he was alone at first), he did not remember the technicians (target, threat, remove), he did not remember struggling for breath against the cold (waking procedure had not been implemented) and he had not, at the time, realised that he was in New York.

He had known only that he was naked, in pain and there was no mission. There had been nothing but cold, pain and confusion.

There had been no survivors.

 

* * *

 

The first clear memory that the soldier had of that day was later. He did not know how much later, because without mission countdown, he was not good at keeping track of time.

His head pounded against his skull. He had clothes (he was unsure of how he had obtained them), four weapons (that he could think of), the pain in his chest continued (erratic, along with his breathing and movement) and he was no longer at the base.

The realisation that he had left base without orders struck him like being slapped.

He had compounded disobedience with disobedience. He had malfunctioned and killed agents without orders. He had left the base. He had not observed procedure. He had not waited for orders. He had panicked. He had been in New York, and it wasn't allowed.

The soldier stopped in the street, then ducked into a side street with ice gripping his insides. He struggled for breath (“Breathe, okay? Just breathe with me.”) and tried to clear his vision. There were disembodied thoughts without context rattling in his brain. There were images unbidden. Voices that only existed in his mind. None of it was relevant training for this situation. It was a malfunction. An onslaught of material that just wasn't relevant.

Maintenance required. Consciousness had begun to plummet. He had been shutting down, with darkness at his eyelids and stomach turning on itself.

_(Shit)_

 

* * *

 

The images on the surveillance had caught his blurring vision.

As if tugged by an invisible leash, he had walked to the front of the televisions in a small shop. They were showing a battle. Unsure of what had drawn him there, the soldier had waited for an indication.

The sign had come in red, white and blue.

It was familiar.

It was familiar like his finger on his guns. It was familiar like the movement of hand to hand. It was instinctive and guttural, in a way nothing external had ever been before. It clawed at him, ached like an old wound and it had been pulling at him in a way that made him want to run and run. The cold inside him had taken over his chest, but there was also a burn. He recognised it as fear.

All the soldier ever feared was failure.

He did not understand.

It was malfunction upon malfunction. He would not have been able to continue in this way. His functioning had become severely impaired. He required maintenance, calibration and punishment for his failure to comply.

There was a base in Newark. He had been supposed to go there once. 

(he hadn't, but could not remember why)

He gave himself a mission. Obeying the mission took priority above curiosity. The mission: obtain a car. Go to base. Recalibrate and resume normal functioning without these aberrations. Return to base and accept punishment (before it hurts more) before it’s too late.

That had been the plan.

 

* * *

 

Things had not gone to plan, but then, when the hell did they?

(his directives were always fulfilled, so he did not know where that thought had come from)

It had been a small base, with only twenty people inside it at most. He killed the majority of them quickly and without another thought. He had not planned that. It was instinct, one buried deep and howling inside. Something told him to destroy them, and despite his jumbled mind, he still felt the need to obey orders. It was all he knew for sure.

He spared one of the medical technicians, allowing them to move with his gun trained on them. He told them he was broken. It was a mission report, even if the mission had not been assigned to him. He described the ice in his chest. His trouble breathing. His inability to concentrate or remember. The gripping void patterned with voices.

“You just _woke up_ without any meds to stabilize your system?”

The technician had been shaking when he spoke. The technicians did not often speak to him directly, but the technicians’ voices did not usually quiver. The man was afraid, and somewhere inside the soldier, a voice declared that was good because they should be.

The soldier ignored it (irrelevant) and nodded in answer.

The technician had gaped, “You should be dead. According to our information--”

Another spark of thought. Weapons had manuals. If he wanted to maintain -- _to survive_ \-- “You have information on me.”

The soldier did not phrase that as a question. The soldier did not have questions. Questions were not permitted. But he was finding he had many questions, whether they were permitted or not.

The technician (not a doctor, doctors were for people) nodded.

“Show them to me.”

 

* * *

 

 The information had been old and worn, but useful.

For this reason, the technicians death was quick.

 

* * *

 

Two hours later, the soldier had boarded the train with a duffel bag stuffed with dirty cash and forty year old file papers.

He’d changed across to a bus, then another train. He was covering his trail. He had needed to find somewhere to go that he could read through the information and find sources and solutions for the malfunctions he’d been experiencing.

If waking up without correct procedures had been the single root cause, the shaking in his (human) hand would have stopped by now. His healing ability would either have taken care of it or he would be dead.

Either way, he wouldn't be shaking like a damn child.

 

* * *

 

He couldn't get the man in red, white and blue out of his mind.

Other things were creeping in, but Captain America remained a fixture.

There was something important --

 

* * *

 

 The soldier acquired shelter by breaking into an empty house with three days of newspapers.

From the notes on his file (dated 1970-1974) and the internet, he was able to draw up a mission list. 

He discovered that, in the absence of others giving him a mission, the soldier would give them to himself. He had assigned targets in the base. He had retrieved money. He had blended in against a crowd and walked unnoticed while watching others. He had assigned himself the mission of surviving. He had made evasion his mission too. He was unsure why this was. If he had been doing great work, if he'd been helping people, then to run and refuse his fate was selfish.

 He still ran. So, he’d supposed, he was selfish.

The missions consisted of sustenance (he would need to learn to make the nutrient liquids himself), medical needs (he had been on several substances that he would soon experience negative effects from not taking and he would have to figure out which were truly necessary), clothes (needed for reconnaissance), weapons (he had decided, it seemed, not to return to his handlers and they were unlikely to take kindly to this), a safe house (somewhere that was actually safe) and information on HYDRA.

After a beat, he added Captain America to the list.

 

* * *

 

Over time, the soldier had begun to recognise the sounds and images as his memory filtering through.

That part of his mind then was a dark, cavernous hallway full of doors with an image on them. These doors were locked. Sometimes the images moved, indicating the stutters of a memory damaged by wiping procedures. Each door had a captured moment, without context and sometimes without anything significant to let him know why this memory was there. The doors do not appear to have an order or timeline. The locks were all equally rusted and bolted tight.

The doors screeched when he attempted to pull them open.

Weapons training was available. His memory seemed to retain information about just about anything but the soldier himself. Even to himself, the soldier was a ghost.

Captain America did not feature, but more often than not, there was a small, sickly boy or a short, skinny man who (“I had ‘em on the ropes”) always seems to be injured in someway or mouthing off. That man was important. The memory of his split lip and stubborn eyes was only a few seconds of stuttering movement was treasured. He feared losing it. He was not supposed to have these memories, but they were warm when his insides still felt cold.

The soldier feared losing what little memories he had, but he would try to be brave.

There is a door with no image. He knew that it had something to do with Captain America (and maybe why he couldn't remember him), because every time he went to research the Captain on the stolen tablet, the waking nightmares would come and his nightmares sounded like the screams from beyond that door. He could hear a voice (his own) reciting words, over and over.

It wasn't a door he’d tried to open after the third time of suddenly becoming aware to his own screams. He’d give away his position.

 

* * *

 

It took two months for HYDRA to catch up to him in Prague. He had left one alive (barely), to relay the message that he would destroy anyone who came after him. It didn’t stop them. He kept moving, but they refused to stop.

They wanted to retrieve their property. He didn’t begrudge them that. It was just that the soldier was unsure if he really was their property anymore. The soldier lived as a ghost, but he was not sure he was still one. He was not sure if you could wake up one day and no longer be dead.

HYDRA always knew where to look for their ghosts, so perhaps that was how they’d found him so much afterwards. They were  a looming spectre, found behind every door and in every corner he tried to hide in. The soldier was not able to settle anywhere longer than a week after that before he could see the signs of them. Some of it may have come from withdrawal, but paranoia was better than being found and it was better safe than captured.

He slept once a week. He ate once a day, consuming shakes he had fashioned from the nutrient requirements to keep him going. He took what meds he could afford to be seen stealing without indicating himself. He moved at night, with stolen cars and bikes in his wake. He routed money where he needed it. He stole it when necessary.

He destroyed two more small outposts as a deterrent, but they kept on coming.

He spent one night in a flop hotel room in Madrid with his last fully functioning gun pointed at his temple and tried to decide if he should live or die. Survival had been the first decision he had made, when he had awoken. He did not want to die now. Even if he was doomed to live as a ghost, he did not want to die now.

He chose to hit the black markets and topped up his weapons supply instead.

 

* * *

 

Morality, such as it was, crept into his mind.

The more assassinations he remembered, the more he thought he would hand himself over for punishment to any of the numerous governments that would exact it. That would have been familiar, at least. But even with half a dozen intelligence agencies he could think of off the top of his head, there were signs of infiltration or no guarantee that he wouldn't end up back as he was but just for someone else this time.

He was on his own.

 

* * *

 

Something had to give.

If his life was not going to end, then he needed to try living it.

 

* * *

 

 HYDRA had been chasing a ghost, so the soldier gave them one.

The biggest problem had been the arm. It was too recognisable, so any body would be identified that way. He used enough explosives on the base that only parts would be found. It would have to do. He made sure he had been seen entering the base before the explosion. He tried to match the materials in his arm.

The soldier did not stand and watch his old life burn.

It was not the first time he’d died and walked away, even if it felt as if there should have been someone there beside him as he did.

 

* * *

  

The man formerly known as the Winter Soldier had found the internet helpful when it came to being a functional person instead of a ghost.

Adjusting to life after having been a soldier was a common problem. That was a relief. Many people successfully navigated this issue and adjusted to a life after making modifications to accommodate themselves.

He jotted down three requirements for living: a name, a home and a purpose. 

It wasn't that he didn't have a name. The problem with that was he was already aware of his name (Barnes, Sergeant, 32557) but it was beyond the door he was still unable to open without struggling for breath and collapsing in on himself. Opening that door felt as if his mind would kill him.

Every time his fingers hovered over the keys of the laptop, every time he tried to type it out and press search, he froze up. He tried to say the words aloud and his throat closed. The files on his training were incomplete, but it did beg the question of a failsafe. They did not want him to know, and he had never questioned how he had no history or self beyond his mission.

(why had he never questioned?)

 

* * *

 

The location was easier.

He knew enough to know that home was New York. If his name was verboten, then the place he was not supposed to go was surely home.

When a place in Brooklyn came up, that familiar fear came back and his stomach lurched. He did not run. Hiding in plain sight was a good tactic and he had not come this far to have to turn around now.

He took the admirably well forged papers, and went to look at it.

 

* * *

 

It was a shock to the system to see chipping paint walls that the man who had not yet been Sergeant Barnes had walked past on the way from work.

He couldn't shake the feeling there was something missing in the alleyways, because he had the urge to keep checking them.

 

* * *

 

 It had been at least six months (more, since he'd slept?) since the soldier (the man?) (Barnes?) had been wiped, but things were still wrong.

It wasn't that he had no memory, eradication did not seem to be what the chair had done, but that his memory was confusing and missing chunks of vital information. Suppression would be a better term. The longer the time away from the chair, the more information seemed to flood into him and he couldn't ignore it.

His memory was moments caught here and there. They were difficult to place without context but he struggled to try. He had always ignored any tiny details of thoughts that had never left him after a wipe as irrelevant data. Now all data seemed relevant. His memory, parts of it at least, was still there and persisted through the electricity. His mind was broken down, calibrated and out of his control but that was a damn sight better than his memory being permanently removed.

 

* * *

 

Most memories seemed to last only seconds with no surrounding information but there were several memories that were longer than most. Most were his missions, but some were not.

An older man in uniform with his hand on the shoulder of the soldier (the child). Baking with a small, blonde woman as she spoke to him about the importance of kneading. A small boy wheezing in a bed while a voice that he suspected was his own told him he was not permitted to die before they got to see the Grand Canyon. That same boy now man, small with a split lip. He said he had them on the ropes. He always said that, especially when he’d been losing.

The first night he slept in Brooklyn, the soldier had dreams of Coney Island and hot dogs.

 

* * *

 

James Barnes woke up feeling cold. For a moment, he couldn't understand why Steve wasn't beside him. It was too chilly for him to have retreated to his own bed, even if he'd somehow managed to annoy him that much.

The thought cut off abruptly when he saw his arm glinting in low light.

The realisation that the former soldier had thought of himself by name, that he had _overslept_ and that Steve ( _Steve_ ) was that ill-healthed, whip sharp boy who was always in trouble  made his chest flutter with hope.

Steve was a key in a door. All the following day, he had been bombarded with memories of their neighborhood. He’d followed them like a kid with a treasure map and found himself smiling. Even walking down these streets at night was familiar. He could practically hear Steve beside him, chattering as they walked home. He could remember how their neighborhood smelled, the children playing and his own arm slung around his best friend to keep his spirits up.

He’d press his head to Steve’s and it would feel like home.

 

* * *

 

 The former soldier knew he had to be older than he looked. Cursory searches of terms and places (ones that did not incapacitate him to write) indicated that many years had passed over him when he was frozen.

When he realised that he had not seen Steve in almost seventy years, it struck him like a physical blow. Steve had never been well. Steve was likely to bruise if you breathed on him funny sometimes. Steve always stuck his oar in even when he didn’t have to and stuck his neck out like it wasn’t fragile. Steve got into trouble without him.

Steve had to be long dead.

That thought brought on tears for the first time since he’d woken. The grief, which would have meant almost nothing to him before, was so intense that his whole body shook with sobs. He’d rocked himself back and forth like a child (he remembered doing this in a cell once too until they'd stopped him) and wondered what he had done that was so awful as to deserve this.

He knew the answer, of course. He could see their blood if he shut his eyes.

He’d never felt as helpless as he had then.

 

* * *

 

(Barnes) (James) (the soldier) (the man) (names were fucking _difficult_ ) tried to type in Steve’s name, if only to see if he’d married and had a good life without him. If someone had seen in him what he always had or if his big mouth had got him into trouble.

Something in the back of his mind made him think maybe the army took him after all, but he chased away the thought. They’d have to be desperate, what with his health.  Steve was an artist, not a soldier.

He’d found that he didn't want to know the answer, because he didn't know what would hurt more.

 

* * *

 

The man who had formerly been the Winter Soldier and had once been James Barnes (and was currently using Vanya because it was a common name) tried to stay busy. While on some level, every memory from _before_ that trickled through was cherished, the memories often took on a violent or bitter edge and he sought distraction. 

He found one in a bakery only a few blocks away. They had a massive poster of Captain America in the full get up in the window, advertising something known as Cap Cakes. They were little cakes with stars like his shield.  It was strange, because it wasn't that he’d forgotten that Captain America was important or that seeing him produced fear and a strange, bubbling excitement inside him. He'd put it down to hero worship, because they'd been around in the same time period. The memory of his childhood home, of Steve and of two dumb kids messing around had just taken priority here.

He knew he’d been a Sergeant (he’d meant to leave after his time was up, but then Steve was sick and the extra money helped) and that he’d been captured. Standing in front of frosted cupcakes, he remembered that he had been a Howling Commando and that HYDRA had taken him (before) . His entire unit had been taken by HYDRA (not just him) and as the text headline painted on the wall proclaimed, Captain America had saved them all.  

( _don't pull that thread_ )

There were sharp pictures of them in uniform, and it occurred to him that he was barely identifiable as the same man now. But then, maybe they weren't meant to be that recognisable in case of covert operations. They were all professional shots -- nothing personal.

So the Captain had saved him once. That part he couldn't remember clearly, but he could remember Dugan and Jones. He could remember watered down alcohol and how they couldn't hold it. He could remember the shield and the man's hulking presence, but --

There was something lurking behind that door again, but the screams were still violent and he had to dig his metal hand into his thigh to keep silent in public. The mask had always helped that and for the first time, he missed the security of being hidden.

What had brought him out of the sinking feeling was the sudden, extremely funny realisation that he was a cake. They were all cakes. There hadn't been much to laugh about in the last year, but the fact that someone thought Dugan would make a decent cake was definitely worthy of a good chortle.

He pulled himself together enough to buy a Bucky Brownie, but didn't get two blocks before collapsing into hysterical, painful laughter.

 

* * *

 

The man who was struggling to call himself Bucky without it sounding hollow was still dreaming of Steve.

He’d expected more memories (answers) from the Commando’s, but If anything, the memories of Steve were more vivid. He could remember telling him to not do anything stupid, and then he’d left him for the last time.

When he woke up, he threw the glass of water into the wall just to hear it shatter. It felt good for something else to shatter, aside from him.

 

* * *

 

Though still scattered and patchy, Bucky Barnes’ memories crept into the man bit by bit. They were still short, stilted and incomplete. Some people had no faces and others made no sound.

However, so had his memories of his time as a soldier in Russia. He could remember rooms of red, training and long periods of interacting with targets rather than waiting for them to fall over dead from a bullet.

Every night, he sat with his back against the door in his bedroom with his weapons to hand. Every third night or so, he would fall into sleep and awaken screaming. He was frustrated and exhausted.

At this point, if HYDRA did find him, he doubted he’d be able to hold them off.

 

* * *

 

One of the things he had apparently forgotten about living in buildings like was that when people heard you scream, they came knocking. It was stupid not to think of it, not until one of his neighbours (mid-thirties, two kids, two apartments down from him) came to check on him one morning when his hand was still trembling.

(there was hot metal in his body and no anesthesia because HYDRA, it turned out, were complete bastards who were not trying to free the world but enslave it)

“I’m sorry,” He said, his voice hoarse and crackling.

She appeared to be staring, and it took him a minute to realise why. He was not wearing the sling that usually hid the arm. She could see the mangled flesh and metal. He felt incredibly naked, but stood his ground.

“How long have you been back?” She said, after a few moments.

 It stood to reason that she believed he’d been discharged from service. He supposed, with the exception of corpses strewn across Europe instead of saving people, she wasn’t far wrong. “Almost a year,” He said, once he’d figured how much time had past and he still couldn't google his own fucking name without vomiting. ( _Pathetic_ )

Her brow increased, “Is it nightmares?”

This was something that was talked about now? It had been a long time, but he was sure this was something that was a private family matter and not discussed. She was still looking, so he nodded.

“I know it’s none of mine,” She said, now seemingly tentative. She looked up and he managed to meet her eye. This seemed to spur her into continuing. “But seeing as the walls are thin and my sisters in the service, I might get it if you want to talk. Or wanted to see someone official like. I could drop in some information for you, if you want?”

He’d had no idea what to say to that, so he just nodded. She seemed to take that as a good answer.

 

* * *

  

 The thing was, after that, a few people had started to talk to him in the building. They asked him questions and he supposed that what he told them when he couldn't avoid them wasn't far from the truth. He’d been in Special Forces (Barnes had), he’d lost his arm after being in accident (a fall) and most of his living memory with it. He’d been born in Brooklyn, but he’d left a long time ago. He’d come here to recover.

Mostly, they asked how he was doing and there was often a seemingly sympathetic head tilt that seemed to go with it. The extra attention made it more difficult to go out during the day, but he worried less about someone calling the authorities in the night. 

He seemed to settle himself. He renewed his lease with C. McQuade, the buildings manager and decided to give it another six months. He wasn't stupid enough to call it home, but it was something more than a safe house. He had one of those upstate.

This was something else entirely.

 

* * *

 

 It had been late evening when (James? Bucky?) had been hit with an orange. When another came flying, he caught it. He should have caught the first one, but his sleep debt was on four days and he was sluggish. Not that this would matter if it had been HYDRA.

But then, why would HYDRA be throwing oranges at him?

“Get back here!” The voice was familiar, but it took him several moments to place it as the owners granddaughter coming up the stairs with a bag in her hand. She met his gaze with an “Oh…”

“You lose something?” His voice came out vaguely European this time, but with a hint of Brooklyn in it. Most days, he was a mix of Barnes, the soldier and maybe something else altogether.

She took the oranges from his hand. “Yes, yes, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry, I thought maybe it was the Taylor kids up there. They’ve got one of them guns, you know, with the darts?”

Though he didn't know what it was, he got immediately acquainted with it when he caught one inches from her arm. He spun around to see eyes widen, and hear the clatter of running. His gaze, in addition to terrifying technicians, also worked on eight year olds.

He turned back to see her going towards the door and handed her the plastic projectile.

“Thanks,” She said, “I’m Alice, I’m Charlie’s daughter? I’ve seen you around but...Anyway, It’s Vanya, right? Am I pronouncing that right?”

He was saved for an answer by an elderly woman he’d identified as Mrs McQuade, a woman in her mid eighties. “Was that the little brat from downstairs?”

“Yeah,” Alice replied miserably, demeanor from polite to personal switching subtly.

“You should get your own dart gun and shoot them back,” the older woman suggested.

Alice rolled her eyes. “I’m twenty, I’m not going after a couple of kids with a dart gun.” The look she gave her reminded him suddenly of someone else, but he couldn't place it. it made him uneasy.

“If you don’t--” Mrs McQuade stopped suddenly and he had the strange, distinct feeling that she’d done it before. That wasn’t right. They had never been face to face like this. “You’re down the hall?”

He shifted uncomfortably, “Yes, Ma’am.”

She grinned at him. “Anyone ever tell you that you’re the spit of a local legend?”

Actually, it had come up. Once at the cake shop, where he’d given an uncomfortable smile and noted that yeah, it was a hell of a coincidence. Again at the library, where an extra level of discomfort had been added when someone asked if he was ‘Agnes’ boy’ and he’d struggled for breath with the invasive memory of his sister. No one thought much of it, not with his beard growing and his hair loose.

He didn't look like a dapper young man from the forties. He looked -- he didn't really know how he looked. “Yes.” It was a soft response, but he felt he’d left it too long to nod.

She’d looked like she wanted to say something else when he’d caught another dart. He was a little surprised to see an eighty year old woman chasing down the twins from downstairs about where that gun was going if she caught up with them and at the same time, not surprised at all.

If his sisters had reached her age, he kind of hoped they were out there terrorizing snipers in training too.

 

* * *

 

He didn't look up Rebecca, Agnes or Sarah. He wasn't really their brother (he just had his memory), so he had no right to lay claim to them or their lives. He thought about looking up the commando's, but taking stock of what he was, he couldn't bear them to see him even if they were still alive. 

Once, he'd even considered trying to find Captain America but given that the Captain was the paragon of liberty and he was an ex-assassin with a fucked up memory who let HYDRA call his shots, he didn't think he'd appreciate it.

(there was still something--)

( _don't look_ )

 

* * *

 

It didn't take long to establish a new routine. He found comfort in a routine, even if it meant he was more easily tracked. The point of going off the grid was to eliminate that element, so he told himself that it didn't matter that he went to the same places and only varied it by a few hours.

He refused to watch the news. He moved onto trying to keep down solid foods, which sometimes worked and sometimes didn't. He drank a lot of tea. He watched mindless television shows and On Demand. He read book after book , finding he remembered most of the classics. He steadfastly refused to read anything on himself. His memory was coming, but if he rushed it, he might fuck it up. After being starved for information, it felt like he shouldn't look now it was coming back. 

( _don't look_ )

So he worked out and still only left the place at night if he could help it. He checked and rechecked his little corner of the world and tried to ignore the still locked doors in his mind. 

He still set goals, because he’d read that was important but mostly, he tried to stay below the radar. When he’d been invited to Mrs McQuade’s birthday party (whole building was), he had declined. There was something about that woman that he found unnerving and there would be too many people there for him to stomach. He did want to give her a card though, because at was what you did. He had remembered having good penmanship once. His Ma had told him so. He spent hours trying to find a penmanship that felt real, even if the name wouldn't be but everything came out shaky.

He slipped the card under the door and seeing how many people from outside the building were trotting up to see her at close intervals, he’d headed up to the roof and down into the streets.

Too many potential targets still made his head hurt and he wanted to get away till it was over.

 

* * *

 

James Buchanan Barnes had been a quick child and a brilliant sniper. The Winter Soldier had been brutally efficient and never missed a target. The soldier had been able to hide and destroy. Apparently, the man he was now couldn't even remember where he’d put his keys.

The party was still going on, but enough people had left that he’d felt better to walk into the building and hunker down till it was over. He saw the door open and went straight to his door, willing himself to find his keys before someone tried to speak to him. Shifting the bag of juice, chips and a Falsworth Fancy, he tried to reach into his pockets when he became aware of eyes on him.

He turned around evenly, ready to face down nosy party guests, when the entire world crumbled at his feet. He knew that face better than he knew his own. It was the same face that followed him around every step in Brooklyn.

That was Steve.

That was his _Steve_ standing in a hallway.  That was his Steve and -- _Oh_. 

He froze to the spot, even as he finally found his keys in his pocket. He watched as Steve turned to talk to Mrs McQuade and the instinct to run hit him so hard that he practically slammed through the door.

 

* * *

 

On the other side of the door, the man remembered being taken off a slab in a HYDRA base by Captain America.

By _Steve_.

Steve without that fucking helmet that goofed his hair up and the tights that did something kind of hot he couldn't quite explain to himself, even then. Steve Rogers was Captain America. Steve Rogers had been his best friend, his roommate, the person he’d loved most and the person he’d been afraid to leave behind.

Steve Rogers had grown a foot and gained twice his body weight and he was still the most beautiful fucking thing he’d seen in his whole life because he was breathing, he was breathing right outside that door.

(If he’d imagined it, if he was going mad --) (He wanted to scream, he wanted to run, he didn’t feel safe anymore --) (He had never felt so elated, so excited --)

None of his thoughts would _finish_ and he managed to get one extremely appropriate cuss out before bolting to the bathroom, with hitting his knees to the ground before he started throwing up. He didn't care that his mouth was disgusting, he didn't care that he could feel hot tears spilling over and he especially did not care that none of these memories were things he had any right to because he was nothing more than a reanimated ghost. 

Steve Rogers was Captain America and he wasn't dead. 

(-- and he'd seen _him_ too.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Potential triggers include multiple panic attacks, one scene where a character briefly considers shooting themselves in the head and a couple of references to difficulty processing solid foods and non-specific drug withdrawal.
> 
> You can also find me on [tumblr](http://djemso.tumblr.com)!


	3. don't you know who i think i am

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I want to say an immense thank you to everyone who has left comments and kudos on this fic. It honestly makes my day and has made exam time a lot more manageable. I've spent a few weeks doing my course finals and with this being a fairly pivotal chapter, it's taken a little longer than the others to get it to the point I wanted it to. It's still not beta'd but I've been through it a few times and hope I've caught everything.

It wasn't the stupidest idea Steve had ever had, but wasn't the craziest either. There was a lot of competition for both and knocking on a stranger's door was pretty tame in comparison to most of them.

It wasn't on par with jumping out of an airplane into a HYDRA base with no idea what he would do beyond try and get people out. It’s not even up there with helping out Mary Gilles when a couple of guys were harassing her and had a dizzy spell in the middle of the fight. It’s probably somewhere between forging Phillips signature on a few necessary last minute documents to get the boys out of trouble and getting shot in the back five times that one time. At least no one was yelling at him this time.

When Steve had gotten back to the hotel, he still holding the pamphlets in a slightly sweaty grip. For the first time in a long time, he was having trouble breathing right. He had to stand against the wall, taking deep breaths and wait until the bubbling anxiety went away. The afternoon had been surreal. If Violet hadn’t come out and confirmed, he could have believed that it was a hallucination. Something brought on by being in Brooklyn alone, but with people connected to his past.

Steve was too close to this, but it was an itch under his skin begging to be scratched. He’d never been good at ignoring anything.

He distracted himself by checking his email to calm down. There were three new emails since he’d checked this morning. One from Natasha, asking if he had plans next Saturday and his feelings on tongue piercings. He shut that one without answering. He was pretty sure Natasha was just attempting to mess with him and he wanted to think up an appropriately irritating reply. The next was from Brock Rumlow, the head of the STRIKE team he’d been assigned to. The guys were heading out for drinks and he was welcome to go. He was starting to think Fury had assigned everyone he spent time with the assignment of giving him a social life. He fired one back to him to say he was still out of town and rain-checked. The third was from Pepper Potts, inviting him to breakfast at the tower tomorrow, because Bruce was coming back and she might need a science buffer. He thanked her for the offer, but sent apologies. He wasn't in the right mental place for too much company.

Instead of sleeping, Steve found himself looking at some of the Smithsonian files he’d left on his laptop. It wasn't the smartest move, but it was easier than than confronting the reasons for his insomnia. The budding collection was much larger now, including a lot more personal aspects about the people involved rather than their public image. Casual photographs intermixed with professional, his sketches beside replicas of Howard’s ridiculous inventions and commissioned artwork. He’d agreed to do something for it too, but just staring at the page had made his stomach bottom out. Inspiration was fleeting these days.

Steve hovered over the pictures of Bucky after they’d gotten back from the factory. Of all the pictures, he tended to look at these the least. Bucky had always liked to look good, and he didn't look good here. It seemed intrusive to look at him when he knew how much he’d hate that there were pictures where he didn't look like himself, primped and preened for the camera with a rakish grin. These photographs had this hollow look that hadn't faded enough yet to pass for a general weariness, his body language was slumped from exhaustion and he had fading cuts infected by dirt everywhere. Steve remembered him actually trying to fix his hair down on the walk back to camp and that one of the first things that he’d wanted in London was to get a shave. They’d wanted to take pictures before they all cleaned up completely. It was sensationalist, but they had grinned and beared it with ridiculous stories about Brooklyn. The man in these photos was familiar, but not just from an old memory. He’d seen the same look on the same face that day. His memory was too good to mistake it.

There was something here, bubbling below the surface and he couldn't walk away from that. 

 

* * *

 

By the time he had reached the building, Steve had almost convinced himself that it was nothing.

It was almost eight in the morning, but he hadn't slept. He’d gone over the scene over and over to find some kind of answer, but nothing was forthcoming. The facts remained the same. There was someone who looked a hell of a lot like Bucky was living in a building in Brooklyn where one of their old neighbours happened to reside. That was weird enough that it warranted investigation. He fiddled with the pamphlets in his fingers on the way up the stairs. They felt heavy in his hands. He reminded himself that his own suspicions aside, Violet had asked him to do this. She had shoved these in and requested he have a soldier to soldier talk with someone who was having a rough time. Even if his suspicions and selfish desires were untrue, helping someone out was always the right thing to do.

The building was a surprising hub of activity and Steve garnered a few wide eyes on his way through. He kept his head down and kept moving. He stood outside the door and took a breath, but it didn't steady him any.

Then he heard it.

Sound was a powerful memory trigger and it sent him hurtling back in his head. He wasn't in an apartment building in Brooklyn. He was in a tent in Austria, waking to hear the strangled, hoarse whines being ripped out of the man directly beside him. Bucky was snapshot still, eyes fluttering, breathing hard and stuttering his half-remembered serial number. It had happened a few times, in the first few missions especially and they had their own routine to deal with it privately. Keep him quiet, wake him up and no, he did not want to fucking talk about it and don’t you dare suggest I go home, Rogers, because last time you got left alone, you became a medical experiment so I ain't going anywhere. Thanks to enhanced hearing, he’d even heard it from across a campsite before when he'd woken up early enough to sit by himself for a while and he always sprinted straight in to sort it out before the screaming started and anyone else heard. He had a feeling the Commando’s knew, Dugan especially given that he'd seen them talk quietly and out of earshot before, but they never brought it up. He was thankful for small mercies. Bucky had never been much good accepting help.

Steve was already standing in the apartment living area before he registered the half strangled scream. Maybe a nightmare, but maybe not. The apartment itself was sparsely furnished, but there were a few signs of life. A bag on the floor, a towel on a chair but no immediate threat was visible. His own heartbeat was hammering with adrenalin fueled panic. Whether it was a false alarm or not, something could still be wrong. In the absence of hostiles, it could mean an injury. There were three doors to one side. The noise was coming from from the one directly ahead. Steve pushed down any rational part of him that was trying to perk up and remind him that it was 2013 and ask him what the hell he thought he was doing. If he was rational, he’d have been dead decades ago.

He glanced around the apartment one more time, before putting his hand over the handle and walking slowly, purposefully into what turned out to be the bathroom. He hadn't known what to expect, but there was still an element of surprise to see him curled against the tub. The man ( _Bucky?_ ) was bent up tightly with his knees against his chest. He had long, stringy hair covering part of his face and his arms -- one in a sling -- curled close to him. He wasn't moving a lot, but he was breathing heavily and making a horrific whimpering sound that Steve never, ever wanted to hear again in his life.

But the way he looked? If it weren't for his hair, for the soiled clothes and the bandaged arm, then Steve could have almost believed it was seventy years ago and Bucky had come home smelling of cheap booze and vomit. He had a few days of stubble, but that wasn't unheard of then either if something was eating at him or Steve had been sick. He didn't look injured beyond the arm, but his face looked wet and sticky and brazenly red. He wondered how long he’d been sitting there.

Steve didn't realize his hands were shaking till he put his hand out onto what was either a most disturbingly accurate double for Bucky Barnes or the man himself and settled it on his knee to try and wake him. The response was instantaneous. Steve barely registered the movement before he felt himself being slammed into the wall by something oddly textured and -- _it was his arm_. There were metal fingers trapping him by the throat and there was not a hint of recognition in his face. There wasn't much sign he was actually awake either, with a flat glazed expression taking over. He looked less like Bucky now, but Steve pulled at the hand before trying to fight anyway. “Bucky,” He wheezed out around his aching throat. “Buck, wake up, I don’t--” the edges of his eyesight were going dark and spotted, “--want to hurt--” He had to respond, so he pushed his legs up and pushed him back with a hard kick to the stomach. Bucky hit the sink with a shattering thud, doubled over and wheezing. Steve bent forward putting his hands on his knees and took a few, sharp breaths.

When he looked up, Bucky was staring at him bug-eyed. His mouth opened, then closed again. For a moment, he thought he might run.

“Buck…” Steve started, without any idea how to follow that up other than to just keep saying his name. It had to be him. Had to be.

Turns out he didn't have to anything.

“Get out,” were the first words he heard from his best friend in seventy years. When Steve didn't comply immediately (from shock more than anything else), he repeated “ _Get out!_ ” with a half hysterical lilt. His eyes weren't focused, wild and refusing to look straight at Steve. 

Despite the tightness in his chest, Steve complied this time and the second he was out the bathroom, he felt the door slam close behind him. He struggled to keep himself standing. There was no doubt left in his mind that the man on the other side of the door was Bucky Barnes and--

\-- _and he didn't want him there_. 

 

* * *

 

“Steve?”

It could have been a few minutes or a few hours later but Steve was still leaning there with his back to the bathroom door. His head had been to jumbled to move further, with his mind trying to process what was happening. On the other side of the door, he heard Bucky speak again.  His voice was hoarse when he wasn’t yelling, wrecked and tired in a way that made Steve’s chest tight.  

“Yeah?” Steve asked, trying to keep his tone even and failing miserably. He wasn't sure if he should expect a response or not, and he tried not to wonder what he was doing in there.

“What are you doing here?” Bucky replied, and he sounded like he meant it.

A bark of laughter came out unbidden. “What am _I_ doing here?” Steve couldn't keep the incredulous tone out of his voice this time. “What are _you_ doing here?”

There was a beat of silence before he responded, “I live here.” He could have sworn there was just a hint of indignation in there. As if Steve was the person out of place here. In any other room, he might have been but not this time.

“I didn’t know you lived anywhere.” God, Steve wanted those words to come out amused, or at least, sarcastic. They didn't. He could hear the break in his own voice even as he said it. He added softly, “I thought you were dead.”

“I thought you were smaller,” Bucky responded from the other side of the door. There was another silence, this time filled with something electric rather than tension. He could hear Bucky’s breathing changing, so something was going on. “I’ve….said that before.”

Steve nodded, “Yeah.” There was something that sounded a hell of a lot like confusion in Bucky's tone. Did he not remember that? He’d been pretty out of it at the time, drugged and exhausted. But it felt like there was lead in his stomach and he was afraid to ask. Instead, he deferred to another instinct. “Buck?”

“His ghost, maybe,” Bucky mumbled on the other side of door. Steve wasn't sure that was for him, so much as it was a comment on their weird situation. He heard a thud against the door, which he imagined was Bucky’s head leaning against it. He wasn't trying to be funny. Nothing about this was funny.

Steve’s jaw clenched and his hand slipped to his throat, “You felt pretty real to me.”

“It doesn’t-” He heard Bucky start, but cut himself off. He heard a collection of swear words, mostly German and Russian. Bucky spoke neither language fluently and Bucky was never unsure of anything. It wasn't in his nature. Steve hated the sound of it. Even after HYDRA, Bucky had been purposeful and confident. Within minutes of those nightmares, he was back to his normal self. That didn’t seem the case here. He sounded twitchy, confused and unsure. It wasn’t anything Steve could ever remember hearing from him.

Steve ran his hand over his face. “How long you been in there, Buck?” _In this room, this apartment, not dead._

 “Dunno,” came the response, “When’d you come back?”

Steve blanked for a moment, “Back?”

The swallow on the other side of the door was audible, “Thought I heard you leave.”

Something clicked and Steve made a face, “That was yesterday afternoon.”

He recognised the “Fuck” he got in response to that and bit back what was either going to be a laugh or a sob or a weird mix of all of the above. It was an ‘I overslept’ swear. He’d heard it enough. At that moment, Steve decided to try and pull himself together. He could treat this like anything else, get them through the next few moments and everything else could wait. Bucky was here. That was what mattered.

“When did you last eat or drink anything?” Steve asked. If he’d been throwing up, he was probably dehydrated at the very least. He needed water. It would explain why he sounded hoarse. After a near strangulation experience, he could use a little water himself.

“Coffee. S’morning. Yesterday morning.” Bucky replied, dismissively.

“Right,” Steve said, moving away from his place in front of the door. “You need to drink something, which means you gotta come out of there or I can pass something in.” He looked back towards the kitchen area and wondered if he should push him to eat something too. “Just tell me what you need and I’ll do it.”

That  was either the exact wrong thing to say, or the exact right one because Bucky went quiet on the other side of the door again. He heard taps going on, followed by soft splashes. He had to bite his tongue from prompting again.

Slowly, the door handle turned. Steve took a step back and tried uselessly to find a place for his arms that didn't feel awkward. When Bucky emerged, the soiled jacket had been removed and he was wearing a long sleeved t-shirt that was just this side of inappropriate for the weather. He couldn't help but look at the hand. It was obviously some kind of prosthetic, with metal plating and some serious power behind it. He glanced up at his arm, wondering how far up it went and how it got there in the first place. How _Bucky_ got there in the first place.

Aware that he probably shouldn’t be staring, Steve flicked his eyes back up but Bucky wasn't looking at him. Following Bucky’s eye line, Steve grimaced. From their standpoint, you could just about see the door busted off it’s top hinges where he’d flung it open forcefully the second he’d heard the pained noises and screams.

“Ah,” Steve said, eloquently.

Bucky blinked, then looked back at him. He watched as he seemed to look him over as if cataloging him. Maybe he was trying to decide if Steve was real. He could relate to that. However, something scratched at his memory and he remembered him doing this before. When they’d come back from the HYDRA factory, Bucky had spent days doing this on and off. Trying to figure out where Steve's eye line was now so he wasn't looking down. Adjusting himself not to just sit on Steve’s ‘good’ side because hearing wasn't an issue anymore. Seemingly random touches, as if trying to find similarities and differences. He’d recognized it more easily then, because they were similar problems that he’d had adjusting to how his body was now. Even as the world had exploded into colour and his chest cleared, there had still been adjustments that weren't just falling into things.

Bucky broke the silence. “You broke the door.” His tone was too neutral for him to tell if that was amusement, anger or just stating the obvious.

“I’ll fix it,” Steve assured him, on the off chance he was annoyed about it.

“M’not doing this with the whole landing listening in,” Bucky said, brows knitting together momentarily. He scanned around the room, clearly uneasy. Steve thought about the building on the outside, and then suggested the roof. 

Bucky gave him a single nod.

 

* * *

 

The surrealism of the situation hit Steve like this: he was sitting on the stone, on a roof in Brooklyn with Bucky in 2013 while they drank water in silence.

Aside from making sure Steve went first up the stairs as he always had and grabbing a couple of water bottles, Bucky had been sitting unnaturally still for at least ten minutes while Steve felt alternately calm and ready to climb the walls. He was peeling at the stickers on the water bottle, with barely a sip out of it despite his throat still burning. There was just too many unanswered questions, but Bucky didn't seem keen on volunteering anything. It wouldn't have been the first time Bucky had waited on him to make the first move. “Buck?”

Wherever Bucky had gone, his eyes refocused back on Steve wordlessly. He pushed the anxiety in his stomach down and pushed himself on. He had, during the lengthy silence, began to formulate his own ideas about how Bucky could be here. They were just a framework but he had to start somewhere. Zola had been experimenting on him. He’d been the only person to survive it. He remembered the intensity of his debrief and how quiet he'd been afterwards. If Zola had been trying to replicate the serum, maybe he managed it, or some form of it anyway.

He looked down, thought better of it and then looked him in the eyes. “Was it Zola?”

For a second, it was like the bathroom all over again as his eyes widened and for a moment, Steve was wondering if he was going to go for him again. Just as quickly, Bucky seemed to swallow it down. “I don’t know,” He answered tonelessly, but his eyes were moving back and forth as if he was trying to solve some unseen mathematics problem. He brought his hand up and tapped the side of his temple lightly. “It’s not linear. Memories jumbled and missing. I can’t place what happened when.”

Was that what had kept him away all of this time? When he’d fallen, had he suffered head trauma and didn't know who he was? The idea that he'd been around all this time but just hadn't known enough set him on edge. That wouldn't explain the arm or the fact he looked older but not nearly as old as he should be. Without wanting to overwhelm him, Steve nodded and took the answer. “When our unit got captured in Italy, back in ‘43. You and Jones and Dugan, but you ended up in the isolation ward with a scientist, Zola. That’s where I found you.”

Bucky shut his eyes for a moment, perhaps trying to call up the memory. His eyes flickered open. “When he took the arm?”

Steve blanched numbly. “What? No! Buck, you still had both arms when you fell, Zola didn’t--” He trailed off, and rubbed his hand over his face. “He was running experiments, but he didn’t take your arm.” How did he not realise he'd had his arm for a year after that? Maybe even longer than that, if he hadn't lost it in the fall. Was he connecting one pain with another and getting confused?

He watched as Bucky pressed his lips together in a gesture so familiar that it made him ache. He could see the frustration etched into his features. “You’re right,” He said, after a minute’s consideration. It looked like he might say something else, but he just took a swig of water.

Steve took it as a cue to ask the question he didn't want to ask, but really needed to.  “Do you remember the train?” He swallowed his bile and his apologies. “Do you remember falling?” _Do you remember that I couldn’t get to you?_   _Do you know that I tried so hard to get to you and then I just didn't look for you because I thought there was no way you'd survive long enough to be_ found? He pushed his guilt away. This wasn't about him. 

Bucky seemed to consider it, and let out a deep breath. “Vertigo. Wind. Cold.” He set his jaw, then seemed to have to push harder to continue. “Waking up.”

“Waking up?” Steve prodded, lightly. This was it. This was the answer he needed. “On...the ground?” 

Bucky looked down, but his eyes didn't seem to be focusing on anything. He shook his head slightly. “No. There were people. They pulled me out.”

Steve was unable to stop the rush of his own guilt this time. He shook his head, “I should’ve looked harder.” If someone else had found him, it was doable. Even if he couldn’t have risked the others or losing Zola, he should’ve sent them back and kept looking. He should've done everything he could to find him. He shouldn't have wallowed and should have remembered that Zola had him and there was always a chance he'd survived. But if Steve had done that, would HYDRA have succeeded? Was that the pay off? “I’m so sorry, I should’ve--”

“HYDRA.”

“--What?” Steve stopped at the sudden interjection. What did HYDRA have to do with it? There was a sudden heaviness as his stomach dropped. He didn’t mean that HYDRA had been the ones to find him, did he? He whispered, “The people?”

“Not HYDRA, but -- working with HYDRA? For them, I don't--” Bucky swallowed hard and gestured to the arm. “Arm was already fucked. They-- had to cut it off.”

Numbly, Steve took a drink of his water to steady himself. He had no idea what to say to that. He’d been working to make sure Schmidt didn’t destroy the world, but he had assumed that the SSR and SHIELD had taken care of what was left of HYDRA after the plane went down. Aside from small skirmishes, Steve hadn’t seen any sign that HYDRA was still an active presence in this time. If they hadn't found Bucky, though -- did that mean there was still a head of HYDRA left?

It took him a moment to find his voice. “That’s not it, is it.” It wasn’t a question. It didn’t need to be.

“No.” Bucky bared his teeth, in what could either have been a sneer or a smile but either way, it was grotesque. It looked wrong on him. It was either too angry or not angry enough, caught between emotional and cold. When he looked at him, Steve suddenly felt uneasy. “I’m not your friend. Your friend died a long time ago. I’m just--” Bucky gave a snort of derision, "The remains."

“And I’ve got a different body and lived for over sixty years as a human ice cube,” Steve couldn’t keep the sarcasm out of his tone, but it didn’t make it less true. Neither of them were the same kids anymore, they wouldn't have been even if they had made it through the war and he couldn't listen to Bucky try and distance himself when he was barely an arms reach away. “I’m not who I was either. It doesn’t mean I’m not your friend.”

“You don’t understand!” If anything, Bucky looked furious at that declaration. In a flash, Bucky was on his feet and fuming in his direction.  “They burnt him out. Fragments are all that’s left. Fragments, and _you_.” There was a bitter tinge that crept into his voice, brittle and sad. “Guess he held on to you hardest cause even when I didn’t know my own _name_ , I knew yours.”

Steve couldn’t keep himself from sounding at least half as rattled as he felt. “Buck--”

“Stop!” Bucky snapped at him, spitting his words out angrily. Steve shut his mouth. Bucky had every right to scream at him if he needed to, “I’m not him. I’m just what HYDRA did with -- with the body.”

“Stop talking about yourself like you’re dead!” Steve snapped back at him, unable to keep from raising his voice a little. It was too much. He’d grieved him for a year and a half, he’d missed him and he was sitting right there insisting he was dead. He couldn’t sit there and listen to that. He could go through a lot, but he couldn't go through that.

“Do you know how many lives it would have saved if I was? How many orders wouldn’t have been carried out?” Bucky spat venomously. “How many men and women wouldn’t have bullets in their skulls? How many people wouldn’t be blown to pieces? I’m not your friend, Steve. I’m what they made me.”

Somehow, in among the angry ranting, Steve managed to pick up some of the missing pieces. It was all he could focus on, because the rest was too jumbled to contemplate.  That Bucky had been working for HYDRA. The revelation was dizzying, but that couldn’t be the end of the story. He would never do this in his right mind. There’s no way he would work for them willingly. They ‘burnt’ him out? There were 'orders'? What did that mean?  “Did you want to?” He hated how he sounded, quiet and sad. There was nothing of the Captain America persona. This was nothing to do with Captain America. This was about two punk kids from Brooklyn caught up in a tangled mess.

“Want is irrelevant.” There it was again, that flat toneless voice that made his stomach tense up. “Missions must be completed within the allotted time frame.”

“That’s HYDRA talking, not you.” Steve shook his head. There was a name for that flatness now, and he found himself hoping there was another head of HYDRA left because he was starting to feel that burning need to tear it off again. They'd done something to him. He was confused, but he felt guilty. Steve could hear it in his voice. Worse, he could hear fear in there.  Steve wasn’t stupid and he knew sometimes, people could be coerced into believing in or even working to do terrible things because they've had their heads turned around. To take away expressions and inflections and to push a good man to do terrible things. "What happened to you?"

“I’ve slit childrens throats in front of their screaming parents, Steve. My hands held them down. Not theirs. I’m a _monster_. You telling me want to be friends with that?” There it was, intense guilt crashing down over Bucky's face, and he could see his  eyes going a little dazed and glassy. He believed that, even if it was ridiculous. While there was a part of Steve that was processing that information (children, screaming, HYDRA) and wanted to take a step back, this was Bucky. He had always been all he had and he had been a good kid and he was a good man. Sometimes good men did terrible things, but this was a mess. This wasn't straight forward. Even the weight of it seemed to show on him, as he watched Bucky's legs go and him sit back down with head in his hands. 

 Steve stood up in response and moved across to crouch in front of him. Bucky didn't look up, so he put his hands on either side of his shoulder and prepared for a blow that didn't come. "I'm with you," He said quietly, "till the end of the line." That got his attention, and their eyes met. For a brief moment, Steve thought he was actually going to end up crying or screaming but he managed to keep it together by pulling him close and when Bucky didn't push him away, he pressed his face to his hair. He felt the ghost of his hands against his back and choked back tears.

"This might be the stupidest things you've ever done," He heard Bucky murmur against his throat.

"I don't think so," Steve said, before pressing his mouth against his hair as if he was afraid that if he moved, he'd disappear. "Remember the time I walked out without cover and got shot five times?" 

There was no response for a moment, then he felt a blow of hot air on his skin. "You deserved that punch."

"Maybe," Steve said, trying not to wince at the memory. "I still wish you'd done it instead of Peg."

"Ladies first." There was a shake to his shoulders, which could have been laughter or crying. There was no wetness or noise to tell him which, if either, was going on right now.

Steve just closed his eyes and let the range of emotions just drift over him. They were together. That was what mattered. Everything else, he could handle. "I missed you," He whispered, the words slipping out without him really even thinking about them. 

Bucky didn't respond, but he didn't move either. So they just stayed there.

 

* * *

 

It was inevitable that one of them would break the moment. One of them always did. This time, it was Bucky with a non sequitur. "I smell of puke."

Steve snorted and nodded against him. "Yep," He said, after a moment. It wasn't really something he could complain about, even if he hadn't been on the other end of it half his life. He could feel hard, metal fingers digging into his back and greasy hair against his face, but he could hear Bucky's heartbeat hammering against his chest and he didn't really care about much of anything else right now. Still, enhanced senses and all. "You want to go change?"

He felt his head move up and down and reluctantly, Steve let go. There was an awkward moment where they both looked at each other. _Later_ , Steve promised himself. The rest could come when Bucky had showered and the door was fixed and when they'd both eaten something. They had to go to SHIELD, he knew that much. It might be worth texting Natasha to see if she could help with HYDRA, but it could all wait. It had waited this long. It could wait till they were both in better shape to talk about it.

They walked down the stairs and slipped down onto his floor quietly, but there was none of the tension. He had the absurd desire to put his arm around him, but despite Bucky's habit of doing the same, it wasn't something that Steve really did or wanted to explain right now. They had enough to sort through without trying to talk about their relationship right now. His priority was to get Bucky back into the apartment, a shower and a good meal.

Bucky let him take the lead again, so he saw it first: they'd closed the door over when they'd left and now it was wide open. Bucky seemed to retrieve a gun from nowhere (likely his leg, as he hadn't felt it on him) and Steve was suddenly itching for the shield he'd left in the hotel so as not to spook the guy. There was a shot inside the apartment and half cry of pain. A guy dressed in black slammed straight out the door and right into Bucky, who pushed him against the wall so hard that the guy's head cracked. His chest was still rising and falling. Unconscious, then.

Steve poked his head into the apartment, to find three things that shouldn't have been there: another black clad man on the floor, the arrow sticking out of his chest and Clint Barton swaying slightly on his feet. Steve could see the blood pooling on his shirt and the two of them locked eyes. Barton wasn't wearing his protective gear, just jeans and a t-shirt and he looked as if he'd been caught doing something else when he'd come here.

"Cap," He breathed, gritting at his teeth. "I know this looks bad."

"Well, it doesn't look good," Steve said, raising his eyebrows. The fact there was a fight going on in this apartment, the fact Barton was here, the fact there was one dead body here and an unconscious one out there were not good things. The fact Barton was bleeding out probably made top of the list. He could guess at least part of the first one had to do with him not texting Natasha back yesterday.

There was the sound of another shot and Barton lurched forward, hitting the ground wordlessly.


	4. the doubts that complicate your mind

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this is spectacularly late by about two weeks! It's been a hectic couple of weeks, as we were unexpectedly told we were getting renovations and needed to do a bunch of things before that as well as the noise etc when it started. Add that to school starting up and it's been really crazy. I also had to add an alteration that turned out to be important, which meant a rewrite after working through the issue. You may also have noticed I've upped the chapter count. That's down to a tumblr conversation with drop-deaddream which ended with me deciding what was originally going to be background creepiness needed it's own chapter. Tags will be updated too. As always, this has been read through a few times looking for mistakes but if I've missed something, I apologise! Thank you again for your kudos, bookmarks and comments, I'm awful at keeping up with things but am always genuinely touched when someone takes the time to note that they're enjoying this.
> 
> EDIT: 19/10 Minor edits to change a few words and tenses here and there!

While the soldier had trouble remembering his name, where he lived and what exactly a Kardashian was, taking an impossible shot and landing it perfectly was pure instinct and experience. He moved before he could think about it, then watched as the tell tale shadows slumped in the early morning sun.

There didn't appear to be any back up for now, possibly none had been called and things were spread thin. This was too visible for HYDRA. It was risky to send even a small strike force in day light. That meant they were either in bigger trouble than he would have guessed or they weren't sure they had the right place. The latter was more likely. The Avenger in his apartment had probably forced them to tip their hand from reconnaissance to offence. If that was true, then there could be back up on the way and he wasn't in prime fighting condition. If they'd come in only a few hours earlier, he would still have been slumped in his bathroom dealing with exhaustion and dehydration. Steve Rogers, as usual, had done something stupid and in the process, had managed to do the right thing. Assuming saving his life was the right thing. 

He looked back to  Steve, who was hurriedly ruining his towels dealing with Barton bleeding out. Barton, alias Hawkeye, was conscious but didn't seem overly lucid. He would require maintenance before he stopped functioning all together. The soldier should leave. Any back up were more likely to chase after him than Steve or any of the residents here. He was surprised to find that he felt protective of the building that had given him a safe place for a while and of the people who had been understanding. Steve met his eye and his mouth firmed into a line. He didn't look away. It looked like he was getting ready for a fight. Expressions like these had not changed from the serum. He wondered briefly if his own expressions were different, but they had to be. Steve was just stubborn as all hell and it was as if he knew where his mind was going. Maybe he did know. Maybe he knew better than the soldier did.

With a look at that obstinate glare, it felt easier to step back into the skin of Bucky Barnes and stretch it over himself. He could remember to call himself by name. He'd called himself enough aliases that this shouldn't feel any different.

( _It felt completely different_.)

Barnes would be a helpful person in this situation – they were both snipers and he was meant to have been a good shot. They had the same skin, his arm notwithstanding. Same keen eye. Same battered brain. However, there was a part of him reminding himself that he used to be a powerful weapon and if it was Steve (or God, _himself_ or what was left of Bucky Barnes in him) at the trigger, he would make a more effective companion in getting everyone the fuck out of here.

There was also a part of him that still wanted to run. He was strong and fast. He would get some distance before the Captain or anyone else would catch up. But Captain America was just something Steve Rogers wore over his skin, a shield for the nation with only the vaguest hints of the obstinate little punk that was Steven Grant Rogers. He wasn't dealing with an idealised symbol. He was dealing with Steve and Steve wouldn't leave them -- wouldn't leave anyone to die.

 _Except you_ , something sinister and angry whispered in a voice that wasn't his. The idea that there was a memory where this had been discussed made his stomach lurch and he shoved it away. He needed to focus on what to do. He guessed there was enough of Barnes that wasn't left dead in the Alps that he couldn't leave Steve to deal with this alone. There was the option to leave Barton and run, dragging Steve along. Barnes found, once again surprising himself, that he didn't want to do that. He had enough blood on him without adding more.

“Steve,” He said, trying to pour a question about what to do now into a single word, before his head exploded from too many options and connections he wasn't supposed to have.

“Someone'll have called the police.” Steve said, as he shifted and went about his patch job. “We shouldn't be here when they come.”

Barnes let out a breath, feeling something tight in his chest release and gave a strict nod. So they had to leave quickly. They needed medical supplies, transportation and maybe he should go into the bedroom to retrieve the extra weapons and cash in his closet space too. There would also be a question of what to do if chase was given. They would need a distraction perhaps. Where had he put the explosives? 

“We need to get to a hospital,” Steve's voice cut through his thoughts like a knife. Of course they needed to go to a hospital, where there would be doctors and people to help sew up the holes. People didn't usually do their own stitches in run down safe houses next to piles or weapons. Assets required maintenance, not people. “Can you get him downstairs? I'll be two minutes.”

Something in him balked at the idea of leaving Steve alone for any amount of time. Something instinctual that said that left to his own devices, Steve had a tendency to come back busted up and intent on finding more trouble. It didn't help that it wasn't an order. It would have been so much easier if it had been. It would have meant that it was less of his own decision and less exhausting for it. He glanced at the door. If he was going to run, it would have to be now.

He didn't.

Instead, he bundled the Agent downstairs, whose one slightly delirious comment on the situation was to ask him if he knew he looked a lot like a heavy metal Bucky Barnes and if they could stop to pet that dog.

 

* * *

 

The only way Steve could have met them out of the lobby was if he'd scaled the building. There was a voice, a tangled thread, in his mind that supplied _of course he scaled the building_ in a tone that said it was long suffering and irritated. He wondered briefly if this was his own internal monologue, a mix of cynicism and exasperation brought back to life from the ice by having a fucking huge Steve wrapped around him like a furnace. Maybe it was nothing more than an echo, but he wasn't all that used to hearing a voice in his head that wasn't a memory.

Barton got bundled into the back and if Steve could have bundled Barnes into a seat too, he had no doubt that he would have. The car was too open. He was sitting in the front where a clear shot would be likely to take him out. He'd be dead without a reinforced front, which he doubted this had. But Steve was there too, so if someone was going to take a shot at him, he was in the right place to move him out of the way. Then Barton squawked when Steve floored it, but he – but _Barnes_ , he corrected himself, Barnes could see a faint reflection of a smile on Steve's face. The more things changed, the more they stayed the same. Steve was still all about adrenalin.

Then again, maybe he was now friends with enough people who were liable to drop dead at any second from age or activity that he'd memorized every hospital route.

“Still with us, Barton?” Steve called back, brows knitted together. Barnes began mentally cataloging how long it would take Barton to bleed out and if it was likely he had any internal injuries, except for the hole through him. Bullet was out, which was a good start. His survival appeared important to Steve and needed to be put into a mission priority.

“Yeah,” Barton gritted, “Hope you weren't too attached to the upholstery, though. It's getting a red makeover.”

 _I know how it feels._ Barnes snorted. He wondered if in all the grand notions of loyalty and dying for his country, anyone had noted that Barnes had once had a really fucking dark sense of humour.

Steve spared him a look, but he didn't push. That had to be a first. “It's not my car, actually.”

Barnes blinked.

Barton must have too, because his next question was to ask whose it was.

“It's – borrowed,” Steve said, evasive. Barnes knew that tone. Steve just taken the car. He hadn't broken into it, though. He'd had the keys. How had be managed that? Unless they belonged to McQuade. Wasn't that where Steve had been standing yesterday? Outside that apartment? “You broke into an old ladies apartment and stole her car keys,” Barnes said, hesitantly trying out the words on his tongue. Amusement was a difficult tone to manufacture.

“Borrowed,” Steve insisted, but there was tell tale pink on his nose and the tips of his ears. He was embarrassed. The familiarity of that struck a chord deep inside. His stomach made a lurch that was familiar without him being able to place why or how it wasn't entirely unpleasant. He was finding that was happening a lot in the last 24 hours. “Besides, Violet won't mind. You know Violet. She used to hang about with Rebecca, wore a lot of flowered dresses. She'll—well, I'm sure it's fine. We'll fill it up.”

“Can't remember my own mothers name let alone my own half the time, but you reckon I can remember some brat who hung out with Rebecca seventy years ago,” The words came out sharper than he'd meant them to, if he'd meant for them to come out at all.

He didn't really like the look on Steve's face now. The pink colouring intensified, but the grimace ruined it. He looked like he wanted to speak again, but firmed his mouth shut and shot Barnes the most god awful smile he'd seen in a while. That included his own ridiculous excuse for one. "Sorry," Steve said, quietly.

In addition to a dark sense of humour and a need to keep people safe, it seemed Barnes also had a big mouth on him and it turned out the world was filled with landmines with conversational triggers. 

 

* * *

 

After Barton was rushed through for his patch up job, he and Steve both took up sentinel in the waiting room. Backs against the wall, their matching instincts told them that there could be more trouble headed their way and to get in the best position to avoid it. Steve only just about managed to convince him (mostly through his glaring not being enough to argue the point effectively) to let him out of his sight long enough to use the bathroom and apparently, grab sandwiches and coffee. He spent his absence trying to convince himself that he wasn't having a full-blown hallucination and Steve was here. He drank down the coffee and picked at the sandwich, because Steve's pathetic look had lost none of it's potency even if he couldn't remember a specific instance of it being used. His stomach lurched for a while after, but he didn't heave. He was going to count that as a victory.

“Winifred,” Steve said, without prompt. Barnes shot him a look of confusion, and he elaborated. “Winifred, your mothers name. If you wanted to know.”

“Oh.” There was no key in the lock. There was no rush of a memory. Simply knowledge where there had been none before. He could barely remember his sisters, after all – faceless caricatures of the women they'd been boiled down to hair colour and snatches of conversation without context. Memories of his parents were more fleeting, the licked thumb pushing his hair down and the smell of wet clothes.

“You remember Rebecca but not her,” Steve said, in a cloyingly sympathetic tone.

“My memory is full of more holes than Barton,” Barnes commented, trying not to get his back up and failing at it.

To his surprise, Steve snorted. Every time he started to see the symbol, Steve would do something so utterly _Steve_  that it punctured any illusions of time and muscle. Captain America might be a paragon for that was good and right, but Steve was a punk kid from Brooklyn with a penchant for pushing peoples buttons and a really fucking dark sense of humour. It was hard to imagine himself being the optimist in a relationship. He snorted too, at the thought of that. Steve smiled at him in response, bright and genuine and then came the vertigo. He seemed to have spent half his life waiting about in hospitals, with Steve's breathing and the fighting. It's the same smile, the reassuring dare to try and tell him he's wrong or beaten, even if he's literally been beaten. It makes his stomach pool warm and hazy. He has to look away. He definitely can't deserve this. Not now.

When the doctors came out, the news was reassuring. Steve managed to throw his weight around in that way that makes you wonder if he knows he's doing it or not. Either way, they're allowed in so Barton doesn't wake alone and be freaked out. He remembers waking alone well over a year ago and has to push the memory away. He definitely freaked out. But again, wasn't it the image of Captain America – of _Steve_ – that grounded him again? Maybe this was where he was supposed to be, if you believed in shit like destiny and foregone conclusions.

The room had a large glass window. It was begging for a sniper to kill them all or someone to sneak in from the roof or floors below. His eyes flickered back to Steve when he heard screeching, as Steve pulled a chair out next to his own and waited. He quirked an eyebrow at him, before he checked the windows again then sat down. There was a beat of silence, before instinct kicked in and he filled it. “S'not my idea of a date, Rogers.”

Steve shrugged, “I wouldn't know. It's been a while.”

“Taken a celibacy vow, have you?” It's not as if Barnes could talk on that front. He still wasn't good about proximity. Even being this close to other people made his skin crawl, but he'd felt safe on the roof. There was something about Steve that just always screamed at him to be fearless. Even if he had very little memory of any real intimacy, the fact he didn't hate being touched was a relief.

“I've been busy,” Steve sounded defensive, but there wasn't much heart in it.

Barnes shot him a look that in another lifetime would have been bemusement.

“Look, I've been on a couple of dates,” Steve complained, in the 'no-i-don't-want-to-go-dancing' voice. Somehow, that was very specifically the voice being used. “My co-worker keeps setting me up. But what can I say? I'm just not sure I'm ready for tongue studs.”

“Being intimately acquainted with metal isn't for everyone,” He said, trying not to sound bitter. He flexed his fingers for good measure. Another thing the rooftop conversation had brought to mind was that he had no real memory of losing it – just of the remains being treated without a time frame.

In retrospect, Barnes shouldn't have been surprised that Steve would take that as a dare or give him something to prove. He felt the pressure on the metal and looked down to see the light touch pressing at his metal gingers. It was almost like asking permission. Barnes wanted to hit him and choke himself at the same time from the feeling that thought invoked. Instead, he pushed his fingers against Steve's hand and entwined their fingers together. He couldn't really feel it, but he wasn't sure that was the point. There were no longer any marks on Steve's throat indicating what had happened this morning, but he didn't miss the meaning behind the gesture.

“Do you have a lot of feeling in it?” Steve asked.

“Pressure,” He shrugged.

Steve tugged it up slightly to get a better look. He always was one for the little details. He knew that he'd be careful to put those in the mental picture he was clearly making. That was the artist. His eyes skittering over it, in a way that made him think that Steve was going to be drawing it and he'd end up asked to sit for him. Which implied they had a future. It was getting harder and harder to remember that he had no right to any of this, especially when Steve lit up as the arm re-calibrated without warning.

“Why did it do that?” Steve asked, looking up from the arm to his eyes and back down again.

“Reaction to temperature, probably.” He didn't have an up to date manual, but Steve was warm enough for it to be a good guess.

“Do you want me to let go?” Steve's eyes flickered back up and on fixed him with a searching look.

He stared back through the strands and clumpy straggles that had come loose around his face. Saying no was pretty much always a problem, but he squeezed back and it seemed to get the message across.

“I might not be able to let go,” Steve said, with that tell tale look down and self deprecating pause he always had when he was passing something off that was important. 

“Not even for a tongue stud?” He asked, a smile threatening to tug at his mouth. It was so easy here. The right words, the right combination and the right reaction.

He felt Steve's grip tighten, “Never again.”

For a moment, he considered leaning in and pressing his lips against his. The urge was sudden and electrifying, not something he remembered wholly but something he could remember feeling. It was a rush of fear and warmth shooting through his skin. making him aware of it to an uncomfortable degree. He ducked his head forward and let his hair fall like a curtain. It was still too raw. Despite the feeling of pressure on his hand, despite the same eyes and expression, he couldn't quite connect that Steve as he'd been remembering him wasn't dead. He couldn't quite connect that Steve was here and huge and wore a big flag into battle with him.

( _“You're walking around with a literal target on your back and you expected me to be happy about it?”_

_“It's a shield! They're supposed to shoot it instead of me.”_

_“And what happens when it breaks like that flying car? Stark aint exactly all that reliable in the invention game. What happens then?”_

_“Then I guess I'll have to hope you're as good as you say you are.”_ )

Barnes came back to the present with an almost imperceptible jolt. His hair was moving, and after a second, he realized Steve was pushing it back with his fingers. He didn't pull his arm away after. He let it fall to Barnes' neck, the touch sending ripples down through his body and he felt the strong need to inform his handler ( _he doesn't have a handler anymore, shut up_ ) that his breathing is becoming erratic. 

“Buck?” Steve asked, quietly.

Barnes wet his lips and inclined his head slightly.

"Go somewhere fun?" Steve looked down, before trying to force a light expression.

“More fun than here?” He recognised how it felt to his hand on him, skin against skin and he could feel his pulse beginning to spike. Acceptable levels.

Across from them, Barton groaned. “...what I'd call fun...”

Steve didn't drop his hands so much as extricate himself carefully from both his hand and neck with a look that he couldn't read. Emotionally, this was too complex and way over his head. He was still getting used to thinking in terms as simple as 'anger' and 'fear' and 'content' instead of degrees of functioning. Adding in whatever this was seemed like adding another log to an already roaring fire. It was just too much now. ( _run_ )

 “You alright, Barton?” Steve moved forward on his seat, but Barton still squinted. Steve didn't seem to mind, he repeated himself and Barton nodded. “I'm going to go get the doctor.”

“Call it in?” Barton's speech was still slurring slightly, so he was likely on heavy medications. They could leave now. Duty done. 

Steve nodded, “I already did.”

Called it in where? With who? Was there someone else in play? 

( _Should it be asking questions?_

 _Maybe I have the dosage wrong, we'll try upping it during the wiping procedure._ )

Steve then looked back at him and gave him a tight smile, “Stay with him for a minute?” And with that, he was out the door. Steve always did know how to make an exit, even if he wasn't on the run from anything. Unless the moment had been too sharp for him too.

There was a beat of silence before Barton spoke up.

“Aren't you dead?”

“Probably,” Barnes said, because saying he was or wasn't seemed like too much of a commitment right now.

There was another beat, before Barton added, “You look good for someone who's been dead nearly seventy years.”

Barnes looked back at him considering, then raised an eyebrow in his direction. “You look terrible for a man with a hole in him.”

“Not even my first bullet this year,” Barton tried to move, but grimaced and lay back down. "Ugh."

Barnes blurted out, “Why were you in my apartment?”

“Uh, see, I live in Bed-Stuy,” Barton said, managing to look shifty even under pain medications. That took some talent.

“Bed-Stuy isn't in my apartment,” Barnes said, raising his eyebrows.

“No,” Barton grimaced, moved and swore again. You would think if he got shot that often, he'd learn to keep trying to do something he couldn't. “Look, someone I'm kind of seeing someone who works with him and asked me to keep an eye on him. That's all.”

Something clicked in his head. “Tongue-stud girl?”

“Suggested a tongue-studded girl, not the tongue-studded herself,” Barton felt the need to clarify, “Though from here, seems maybe she should have been suggesting a tongue studded boy instead.”

On instinct, he reached out and pushed his arm hard. It was satisfying to watch him squirm, curse and promptly glare while rubbing his side.

“Okay, you're the jealous type. Got it.” Barton held up his hands in surrender, before making a face somewhere between confused and something...else. Emotions were not easy to read on little sleep. “Man, they did not tell us _this_  in the history books.”

Barnes rolled his eyes and pulled the conversation back to the matter at hand. “What about the HYDRA agents ambushed you?”

“No, they were AIM – wait, are HYDRA a thing again? When did they become a thing again?” Barton looked a little antsy, before looking at the window and back at him. He was probably calculating the chances of an attack. "Are you telling me we have Nazi agents coming?"

Barnes wasn't entirely sure what AIM was, but the fact they weren't HYDRA washed over him like a balm. They wouldn't necessarily have to run and hide. They were not there for him if he didn't know them and he wasn't the target. That didn't mean _Steve_ wasn't the target though. He was broken out of his line of thought by Barton muttering to himself.

“Cap steals cars from grannies, runs red lights and flirts with dead best friend. Now HYDRA are back on the scene?” He shook his head, “I think I'm officially not in Kansas anymore.”

The words came without prompt. “Where's ruby slippers when you need them?” He could see them, red and gleaming up on the screen and hear the ambient noises of Steve's rattling chest, even if everything else felt muddled. The brick road was not meant to be red, it was meant to be something else and there were no red walls in Oz.

Barton made a noise of affirmation, “Think if I click my feet together three times, I'll wake up watching crappy Christmas movies with my dog?”

Barnes shrugged, “Worth a shot.”

Either sarcasm wasn't one of his better thing to emote or Barton was too drugged to notice, because he moved his feet and waited. “Nothing,” He said. He did sound disappointed. That much he caught.

 Barnes shrugged.

Barton smirked like he'd just thought of something funny, “I don't think we've been officially introduced. I'm Clint Barton.”

For a moment, he floundered. But it was just a moment.

“James Barnes. ”

 

* * *

 

Both he and Steve were cast out once Barton was awake, despite asking Steve to stay or his 'work wife' was going to kill him when she got there. Steve had stayed long enough to say he would be telling her she was being called that, but nothing was elaborated on. Barnes put that away for safe keeping. Steve's new friends were a little unusual, but maybe Steve had thought that when he saw Dugan's hat too.

“I need to go back DC and brief SHIELD on what's happened,” Steve said, as they walked down the corridors to stretch their legs. “You -- you could. Come back with me.”

The soldier was shaking his head before he really knew what he was doing. He had good reasons for not going to agencies. He didn't want to end up as he was before, he hadn't even had the chance to be anything else yet and he didn't know where was secure enough to cope if he went off the rails. But if Steve was leaving –-

His head seemed to screech like a skipping vinyl, always pulling him back to where Steve would be and what Steve would be doing and you can't leave Steve alone for five minutes or he'll pick a fight with an army for disrespecting people. Barnes was caught between Steve and common sense. It wasn't the first time and he found himself hoping it wouldn't be the last.

“Look, you don't have to come into SHIELD if that's not what you want,” Steve stopped them both, tentatively putting his hand on his shoulder.

This time, Barnes moved it off and he didn't try it again. The contact on top of the idea of leaving the world he'd created for himself (even if he would have to anyway, it wasn't secure) and dealing with a place like SHIELD was too much. His head was already buzzing too much.  “Then what?” He asked, tentative.

“I don't have to report everything about my personal life to SHIELD,” Steve said, and he sounded almost like he was convincing himself at the same time. It wasn't a promising start. "Even if it's just for now. Come with me. It would be some place safe and we could just put down the couch cushions, like we did when we were kids.”

He was torn, being shredded by the need to stay off the radar and stay safe. He'd stayed alive by not trusting anyone, but he couldn't deny that however brief the contact was, being out in the world and being alive felt like two different things. If you were going to start by trusting someone, you could do a lot worse than trusting Steve Rogers.

“Alright,” He said, slowly. He watched as Steve's face brightened almost immediately.“I'm taking out the trash then. I'm not--”

"I know," Steve's smile didn't falter so much as he looked -- hazy? Excited?

“You can shine your own fuckin' shoes,” Barnes grumbled and Steve, well, Steve _laughed_.

It made him feel like maybe they could do this. If Steve was alive, if Steve was standing here laughing at a dumb joke told by the reanimated corpse of his best friend, then maybe it was worth it to put himself back on the radar. Maybe it was worth trying to finish what they'd started in the forties so they could finally both go home from the war. The memory of their apartment came back for a fleeting moment, of coming home from work to see Steve sitting with a glass of water and a pen while he sketched and sitting together to eat. Of curling up warm and happy in bed, quiet touches and quieter moments alone from the world. If he could figure out how to live properly again and if HYDRA were rooted out, if SHIELD really could help them, then maybe they could have something like that again.

If nothing else was worth this, that sure as hell was. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you enjoy meta and general MCU wailing, I'm at [tumblr](http://djemso.tumblr.com) too!


	5. is there something here to believe (or is it just another part of the game)?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to everyone who's waited extremely patiently on this. In between getting our house renovated and school starting up, I got ill and this has meant that it took me forever to sort out this chapters timeline and write it out because it's pretty important in terms of plot. It's about twice as long as the others but I wanted to make sure I got everything I needed covered and there wasn't a good break point. As always, the comments and kudos make me feel warm and fuzzy and I really appreciate all the feedback I get on it.

 

Stepping out of the machine as a super soldier had been the only miraculous and impossible experience Steve had ever expected to have. Still, the universe clearly enjoyed screwing with him because on top of that, he’d also gotten waking up after being frozen in ice for several decades and then fighting against an alien invasion led by a mythological figure under his belt. Asking for anything more than he’d been granted, asking for more than surviving all of that and still being here, that seemed ungrateful even if he hadn't asked for it. After all, he was healthy, he had a good home, steady paycheck, impossible friends and a lifestyle that kept him busy. He had no right to ask for anything more, but still, the universe had delivered another impossible feat.

Steve was grateful. He was. He was just also terrified. He had begun to reach a point where he had reconciled with the past being where it was and focussing on the future. Except that the past and future were currently on the same train in the shape of Bucky Barnes. On the verge of being unrecognisable, but Steve liked to think he'd know him anywhere.

The train back to DC was deserted. It wasn’t all that surprising, given that one of Bucky’s conditions for coming back was that they get the train in the middle of the night. He seemed to have shut down into a mission headspace. It wasn’t completely unfamiliar. He’d seen that look on missions back in the war, but in the present it set him on edge. Not just because of the fact it had obviously gotten under Bucky's skin, but because if Bucky was on the lookout for danger, everything screamed that there was danger somewhere and they should be alert. He'd always had a good eye. Even more so since Austria.

(Steve was still asking himself why he didn't note those differences more carefully, ask about Zola, push just a bit harder to know that he could have survived. If wishes were horses.)

Out of the corner of his eye, someone moved and Steve moved into high alert. There was nothing there. It was paranoia. Aside from a few people dodging a hangover and one or two on laptops, it was just him and Bucky in this carriage and Bucky had left it almost five minutes earlier. Steve had been having to push himself to remember not to stare at him, but it was a losing battle. This time last night (morning), he had been watching the faded black and white reels and trying to battle insomnia. Tonight, it felt like everything was different. The world had tilted again. Bucky hadn't been watching him. He was keeping watch, scanning over every noise and evaluating it.  Steve had taken the window seat, which proved a good idea when Bucky seemed to decide there should be a patrol schedule to check other areas. He wasn’t sure who or what Bucky was looking for, but he’d come back twice and if it made him feel safer, Steve wouldn’t begrudge him searching for ghosts. Steve wasn’t finding it easy to stay still either. The whole day was hard to process. The whole future was a weird mesh of familiarity and off the wall at the best of times but there was now this mix of Bucky and _Bucky_ , two warring interpretations of the same man forcing everything around him into an even sharper contrast.

Steve opened up the back of his notebook and began jotting things down. It used to help getting visuals out of his head, so maybe what the next step should be (beyond an abundance of coffee) if he got out of his head a little. The facts were important. Bucky had fallen from the train in ‘44. Conditions had made it impossible (or he hadn’t tried hard enough) to retrieve what they’d believed was a body. Bucky didn’t know how he’d survived it, but knew that his arm had been damaged by the time ‘they’ had found him. This ‘they’ had at least partial ties to HYDRA. Or if they didn’t, and Bucky was confusing one trauma with another, they were still dangerous. They’d found a wounded American soldier and instead of notifying anyone, had done -- _something_. How do you burn out what someone thinks and knows down to their bones? Without the use of alien technology, anyway. Unless they were using Asgardian technology but that opened up a whole new set of questions and he had no answers already.

The most qualified people to answer that were only a phone call away, but he couldn’t involve SHIELD without Bucky’s agreement and Bucky had been insistent on having a couple of days to get his bearings in DC before speaking to SHIELD. If he chose to speak to them at all. Steve didn’t know what to do. He knew he didn't want Bucky to disappear and he didn't want to force him to do something he didn't want to, but their options were limited. Peggy’s involvement in SHIELD was likely not the same comfort to him, and even Steve was finding it harder to function under SHIELD’s current conditions. It wasn’t that he believed they were doing the wrong thing, but the right thing done the wrong way would be just as damaging. Especially where the WSC was involved.

He could try talking to the Avengers separately. If there was a version of Erskine’s serum in Bucky now, if Zola had managed to crack _something_ in Austria, then Bruce would be the perfect person to check him over for abnormalities. But Bucky had never much liked being fussed over by doctors any more than he did. Especially not after the factory. Steve wracked his brain to try and remember the days following the return from the factory, if bloodwork was done, if there might be something on some record somewhere that could help and but it was all such a blur of _he's not dead._  Apparently, his reaction to that hadn't changed in seventy years. He could go directly to Fury, ask for his help in finding the information but Fury had to protect the big picture and he might push things too far. If even some of what Bucky had said was true and not some horrific nightmare, it meant that SHIELD might not be as willing to help him as Steve was. He’d managed to get hold of Clint long enough to ask him to keep it quiet, just for a few days. If anyone could play dumb, it was Barton. He excelled at it so much that people seemed to believe it.

It boiled down to the fact that he needed more information. More about what Bucky knew about himself, evidence for what happened during the times he didn’t remember and something -- _anything_ \-- that could help him. And if the people who did this were still out there, he needed a way to bring them out and burn them down. He needed a starting point. Steve shifted again, shutting the notebook as Bucky retook his seat after his third patrol. His eyes flickered to the notebook, but he didn’t ask about it. He looked as tired as Steve felt. Steve offered him what he hoped was a reassuring smile.In a way, him sitting down solved the line of thought. Though he looked better than he had, he was still pretty rough looking and they both probably needed to have a proper meal, something more than a quick shower and they both really needed sleep. Then they could make up some kind of plan of action with clear heads, providing Steve didn’t wake up tomorrow having imagined the whole thing. He resolved that they’d grab food on the way back to his place and try to keep the outside world at bay for a while longer.

 

* * *

 

The first thing they’d had to do after leaving the hospital was leave the car with a service and bring Alice up a replacement. It had turned out to be her car, but with the commotion at the building, mostly people were checking if everyone was alright and gossiping about what had happened. No one seemed to have a clear idea and for once, he was grateful for that. It wasn’t that he didn’t want to know what AIM were doing there, but he didn’t want people to look too closely at why Steve was there. Not yet.

He watched Bucky slip away to “grab a bag” that he suspected would be full of more weapons than clothes and had, to his surprise, had a few people come up to him ask if he was alright. He’d reassured people that Bucky-who-was-using-Vanya was fine, that he was just going to stay with him for a couple of days given the intrusion and had spoken briefly with the authorities who were now cleaning up the area. SHIELD had a couple of people there and Natasha had sent him a text about being en route. He’d had to send one back saying he was on his way back to DC to make a full report. She’d sent a winking emoticon and asked if she was being avoided. He tabled it for now, not wanting to lie but not knowing where to start. Violet was upstairs giving the authorities hell, so he left things with Alice along with a promise to call and explain it when he could.

When Bucky had reappeared, he’d changed clothes and despite being quick, he’d clearly showered from the way his hair hung in a slick, messy bunch. Steve looked out of place with dried blood on his clothes and the need to shower had been becoming pretty damn dire.

They hit his hotel without any real problemsl, grabbed food truck pizza and ended up on the train in such a flash that it didn’t seem real. It was Austria all over again. He just couldn't keep his head straight. It felt like he was going through the motions in a daze.  He almost forgot to check in with SHIELD and let them know he was coming back. He’d heard back from Clint, saying that something like this wouldn’t stay quiet long and if he did it on his own terms, it would be easier. Oh, and was he sure he wasn’t a clone or a robot or maybe an alien? Then another saying he wasn't accusing him of being an evil cloned robot alien or anything.

Steve had stashed his phone in his back pocket when they boarded and tried not to think about how little he knew. If anyone deserved a little faith, it was his oldest friend no matter what situations his brain was beginning to cook up.

 

* * *

 

There was something underneath him moving.

Steve opened his eyes to realise several things at once. One was that he had obviously fallen asleep, another was that he had apparently fallen asleep on Bucky, a third was that was Bucky must have put his arm around him to stop him sliding off and lastly, that was that something -- his phone, his addled mind replied -- was vibrating in his back pocket. He was surprised; he'd felt too tense to sleep. Thinking back into sleep addled memory, it wasn't the first time he'd fallen asleep in this position and not the first time Bucky hadn't had the heart to wake him either. 

“Your ass is vibrating,” Bucky informed him, completely unhelpfully. Steve noticed that the European accent was back but that attitude was so Bucky that he didn’t know if he wanted to laugh or cry at it.

“S’my phone,” Steve slurred, moving his head off of Bucky’s shoulder and suddenly very aware that he’d drooled a wet patch on it. He made a face, “Ugh, sorry.”

He managed to manoeuvre the phone out of his back pocket and checked it for a missed call. It was SHIELD, but he also had a text message. There would be a meeting at lunch time to discuss the current AIM threat and if he was back, he should attend. According to Steve’s phone, it was almost seven in the morning. He pulled back the urge to groan and tried to get the crick out of his neck.

“Coffee,” He said, as the train began it’s last stretch into Union Station. “So much coffee.”  

 

* * *

 

The second they were on the streets in a daylit DC, Bucky’s discomfort seemed to begin to build tenfold. He looked ready to jump out of his skin at every opportunity. He pulled the ratty hood up over his hair and kept his shoulders hunched. Everything about him screamed at people not to go near him or outright ignore him. It was so completely unlike the old swagger and charm, even the embittered one, that Steve could taste the acid anger in his throat. He hadn’t felt truly, undeniably angry in nearly two years but watching this was enough to make him mentally reavow to destroy every last HYDRA agent and anyone who helped them do this.

They hit one of the better deli places and Steve ordered for them both, since Bucky didn’t seem to be able to stop scanning the meager crowds long enough to focus when asked. Two breakfast specials and coffee strong enough to wake the dead in hand, they walked back to Steve’s apartment. The bike was still at SHIELD, as he’d needed to leave it somewhere when he visited Violet but the morning was mild enough that walking didn’t seem too bad. Steve tried a few times to start a conversation, remarking on a few things like the weather or the coffee but Bucky remained a tightly wound coil getting ready to let loose unexpectedly.

It wasn’t any better when they got back to his place. It was a little after eight and people were starting to hit the streets. Even outside of his apartment, the crowds were starting and that seemed to be making the tension in the air even worse. Steve handed the food and what was left of the coffee to Bucky on the stairs so he could let them both in. He’d need to go to Kate later and get his spare key back, but for now, they both needed a hot meal, a longer shower and enough sleep to get through the next few days. While sleep wasn’t on the menu for him (and he doubted for Bucky), they could make a start on the meal.

Bucky seemed to scan around the place and his jaw clenched, apparently seeing something he didn’t like among the furniture. Steve hadn’t decorated the place himself, it was more nostalgic than he would have gone for but he also hadn’t put the energy into changing it. Bucky sat stiffly in front of the couch, still clearly offended by something but not being particularly forthcoming. If it’d been 1944, Steve would have pushed. He didn’t know if he could push now. He didn’t know what was best here and he could feel anxiety tightening in his chest when he realised that this may be even more difficult than he'd thought.  Bucky had been better in New York. It may be the mix of sleep deprivation and a new environment making things worse. He’d even warned Steve he’d need a few days and this might have been what he’d meant. The least Steve could do is respect that.

“Buck?” Steve spoke quietly, breaking the tense silence. He flinched when Bucky jolted, as if he was being shocked out of a thought. He doubted it was anything good and bit down the fresh wave of anger with pancakes. “I need to go into SHIELD. Are you good here for a few hours?”

Bucky fixed him with a look that took a second too long to morph into indignation, to turn into a silent annoyance that he believed he needed babusitting before Bucky nodded tightly. He didn’t follow it up with words, even if his mouth opened as if he would. He shut his mouth again after a minute, wet his lips and then clenched it shut. It was hard to tell if Bucky was spooked or angry or just tired. No matter what it was he was feeling, he clearly wasn't going to tell Steve. He was shut down. Closed off. Walls up.

As he hit the shower, Steve wondered in desperation if he’d made the right call. What other call could he have made, though?

 

* * *

 

Steve put his number on the fridge while Bucky hit the bathroom. He had to trust him to still be here when he got back.

 

* * *

 

Aside from a smart comment about his lateness from Fury, the meeting went quietly enough. There wasn’t enough intelligence yet to go after the splinter group, but Natasha would be back in a day or two with more. They were working off the idea that they’d been trying to set up something right under Stark’s nose and SHIELD wanted to deal with it before Tony did something rash. Again.

Steve gave his report as well as he could without breaking his promise. The attack was on a building where an old friend of his lived and Hawkeye had engaged AIM there. There had been mostly casualties but one man had survived. The man was in SHIELD custody and being brought there. Chances are, the agent was going to assume both Bucky and Steve were SHIELD but there was the off-chance they were there because of Bucky and if it all came out, this was going to get a lot more uncomfortable very quickly. It made Steve want to move the timetable up before they lost control of the situation. Barton was right. The sooner they did this on their terms, the better.

No one mentioned anything about why Barton had been there. There did seem a general consensus that wherever an Avenger was, trouble followed and it was just accepted as fact.

The meeting adjourned and he took the elevator down with his STRIKE team leader, Brock Rumlow. It took an embarrassingly long time for Steve to realise Rumlow was talking to him. Long enough for Rumlow to notice and give him a hard look over, like he was checking for injuries.

He cocked his head, “Everything okay, big guy?”

“Yeah,” Steve sighed, pressing his hand down his face and trying to waken up. It wasn't just tiredness, but a sense of foreboding. He wasn't the best liar, not when he couldn't rationalise it completely and maybe his nerves were showing. “I just didn’t get much sleep.”

There was a ghost of a smirk across and for a minute, he could hear a comment about his love life coming. But Rumlow wasn't Natasha. They knew each other only vaguely out of missions, drinks and pizza and mocking rather than studying one another. Rumlow just shrugged. “I just said I didn’t think we needed to wait on Romanoff. Better to move now and stomp them out before we get people blowing up like that shitstorm before.” For all of his faults, such as his competitive nature, being a little too into his job (as if Steve had a leg to stand on there) and an animosity with Natasha that was present with a lot of ex-soldiers and spies, Brock wasn’t one to hold back and treat him like he would faint if someone cursed in front of him or showed a bit of skin. They fed into each others competitive natures and could joke about it at the end of the day. He liked that, even if the STRIKE team felt nothing like the Commandos. 

“I could use a couple of days,” Steve said, honestly. He’d never turned down an op before, but he’d put the world ahead of his best friend before and look what had happened. This could wait for Natasha.

“Must’ve been some party,” Rumlow said, accepting that without any real irritation. “We’re not going to see you on Geriatrics Gone Wild, are we?”

Steve snorted, and shook his head. “No, the biggest excitement was definitely AIM deciding to crash in there to shoot Hawkeye.”

It was Rumlow’s turn to snort, but it was derisive. Steve wasn’t sure if it was a mutual dislike due to Natasha but now he thought about it, Rumlow did seem to be firmly in the camp that believed Barton was useless and it made Steve prickle. “Dunno what Barton thought he was doing sneaking about after someone who’s off duty. I’d be pissed about it if it was me.”

Steve shook his head. If he believed it was just SHIELD nosing into his life, then that would be one thing. But he had the strangest feeling this was Natasha trying to look out out for him and while he wasn’t happy about it, he appreciated the thought that she was trying, in her own way, to help him acclimitise. “I don’t think it was personal,” He offered, by way of explanation.

Rumlow shrugged, “I don’t know. Seems like Barton’s been off his game since his brain got hijacked.” The elevator stopped at the gym and Rumlow inclined his head, “This is me.”

“Garages,” Steve said, by way of farewell as Rumlow nodded and took off down to the training areas.

It took a few beats of silence before something slid into place mentally. He _did_ have some idea of how SHIELD dealt with people when they were not fully in control of their actions. It’s what had happened to Clint Barton. Clint who happened to be the only other person who knew that Bucky was alive and if not well, then definitely kicking. He composed a quick message, asking if Clint could get back to him when he could talk securely and headed to get a few groceries. He hadn't cooked for another person in a long time.

 

* * *

 

Steve got an unknown number call when he was checking out. He'd bought enough food to do them till tomorrow at least, more if Bucky didn't have the same matabolism.  He ducked into the nearest secluded alley as soon as he was bagged up and rang it back, nervously trying to figure out how he could ask about something that personal. He and Clint weren’t exactly friends, but they weren’t just colleagues either. It was a fine line and Steve hated that weight that told him he didn’t know how much he could trust the people in his life in a stark comparison to knowing who always had his back.

“You wanted me to call?” Barton said, though it sounded like he was keeping his voice down. That wasn’t exactly what Steve had meant by a secure call, but he supposed it wouldn’t hurt.

“Yeah,” Steve said, swallowing down his pride with his nerves. “I need your help.”

“My help,” Barton managed to sound dubious and proud at the same time. “Unless you want someone shot a week or so from now or want to know what’s happening on Bob’s Burgers, I don’t know what I can do.”

“You can tell me how SHIELD is going to react,” Steve said. He didn’t elaborate but he was sure that Barton knew what he was talking about. He really wasn't that dumb.

Barton was silent for a moment and then said, “Uh, I’m going to say that depends on who or what he is. Have you tried asking Nat?”

Steve shook his head, more on reflex than anything else. “What happened -- what’s happened to him wasn’t good. I don’t have all the details, but he didn’t know what he was doing. It's messed with his head but I don't know how SHIELD is going to take that or if they'll even believe it.” It was already proved beyond doubt to him. He could see the marks of someone elses fingerprints all over his best friend as clearly as scars but he he didn’t know where to start without Bucky being willing to talk to him. And Bucky was shutting him out. “I can’t force him to go to SHIELD if it gets him in trouble.”

Barton blew out a heavy sigh, “And you’re asking me because….”

“-- You have some experience in not being in control of your actions and having SHIELD deal with that,” Steve said. Open and honest, the same way he would want to be treated.

There was a longer silence this time and he could hear something genuine in his tone this time, “What _exactly_ did he say happened?”

Steve thought back to their conversation. “That it was like he was burnt out, thought, memory, even now it’s in bits and pieces. It was something that was done to him. It didn't happen when he fell.”

“So --” Barton stopped, making a slightly strangled noise. “Okay. You know who these people are?”

Steve shook his head, “Only that they were at least partially HYDRA.”

"Uh. Okay. Cap, listen to me.” Barton sounded firm enough that Steve shut his mouth. “SHIELD can and will take someone under their wing no matter what they’ve done, especially if they didn’t have much of a choice in it. They’ve done it before. But the better question is if they do, what are they going to want from him? Because with SHIELD, they will want everything he has on these people. Natasha’s been through a lot of this and if you trust her, you should trust her with this. She'd help you find the right decision.”

The question came down to a recruitment pitch then. “And if he doesn’t want to fight?”

Barton mused on that for a moment, “Then he probably still has intel. They get something out of it. I’m not saying SHIELD wouldn’t help anyway, but two eyes open, y’know? Be sure of who he is because SHIELD will.”

“I figured,” Steve smiled, tightly. It was more or less what he’d thought they’d have to do. On one hand, there would be a larger incentive to help him place back his memories into sequence and sense if they thought he might have previously unknown information and it would mean Bucky would feel a little more together. But it might not be what he wanted. It was hard to tell.

“When I was in the hospital, he said something about HYDRA being active,” Barton said, sounding a little unsure. “Is that the kind of thing we’re talking about?”

Steve hadn’t realised they’d spoken, not really. “Yeah,” He breathed. It was one of the reasons he wanted to go to SHIELD. If more people were hurt, if HYDRA had rebuilt in the wake of the war, then Steve and SHIELD both wanted them to go down. “Wait, are you out of the hospital already?”

“Oh, yeah, checked myself out this morning.” Barton said, a little too cheerfully. “Can do laying around on my couch better than a hospital room.”

Steve balked at the thought, then remembered the amount of times he’d done something similar and shut his mouth. Bucky would be proud.

“You want my opinion, if he goes in there, he gets to set his terms. If SHIELD finds out another way...” Barton trailed off.

“I know,” Steve said, rubbing his eyes again. “ _I know._ ”

“Talk to Nat,” Barton said, with a shrug. “Better yet, get him to talk to Nat. She’s had her head fucked with and she’s done -- things. She gets this and she’s out the other side and she’s still there, working for SHIELD. If it’s about trust then she’ll understand it better than anyone.”

Steve had the feeling that was as high a recommendation as he was going to get. “Thanks,” He said.

“No problem,” Barton said, “Just answer me one thing?”

“What?” Steve asked.

“Is he dangerous right now?”

 _Yes. No. If he’s waking up. If he’s scared. If he doesn’t know where he is or what’s happening like he might be right now. If he perceives a threat. If if if._  “Not to me.” It would have to be good enough, but he couldn’t stomach putting him in a cell even if it was for his own protection.

"Tell me to mind my own business if you want," Barton said, sounding as if he was trying to tread carefully. "Would that have something to do with the hair stroking I woke up to?"

"Mind your own business," Steve echoed, but he didn't put much force into it. He didn't want to think about that right now. He had to focus on safe and sane before he could even consider anything more. Otherwise, it was selfish.

"Yeah, okay," Clint said.

Steve headed back out onto the street to his bike, “I’ll talk to Natasha when she comes back. Thanks again.”

 

* * *

 

Steve wasn’t exactly sure what he would find when he pushed into his apartment, but it hadn’t been most of his possessions strewn everywhere. His first instinct was to think AIM had come there, or even these people affiliated with HYDRA had followed them, but nothing had been really broken so much as moved out of the way. It was just like someone was searching for something. He took soft steps forward, in case Buck was there and freaked out. That was when he noticed that the couch cushions were lining the floor. He lifted them up and found various bits of metal and wire under them. He had enough SHIELD training to know what at least a few of them were: bugs. Steve’s stomach dropped. His place was under surveillance.

That was all he had time to think until he felt the smack of a metal hand against his head hard enough to blur. He rolled over onto his feet, with Clint's words about whether he was dangerous in the back of his mind echoing through what was going to be a throbbing headache sooner rather than later. “Hey! Hey, it’s me, it’s Steve. It’s alright.” Through the mid-afternoon light, he could see Bucky hadn’t gotten changed but his clothes were wrinkled up like he'd been lying down. He did look ready to crawl out of his own skin and had found Steve's kitchen knives. _Perfect_. “We’re just in DC--”

Whatever he was expecting, he wasn’t expecting to be spat at in what definitely sounded Russian.

“Buck, I don’t understand,” He blinked away the pounding in his head and mentally cursed the afternoon light. “I need you to tell me what’s wrong in English.”

“You’re -- not him,” came heavily accented English, but there was something else in with the anger now. Stuttering in between the words. A hint of desperation. Fear? There was something he was afraid of. 

“I’m me,” Steve hoped he sounded reassuring, but his head was pounding. He mentally added the arm to the list of impossible things he needed to ask about. “I swear, I’m Steve. You know me. I’ve known you my whole life. You’d know me anywhere.”

Bucky was shaking his head, “You’ve said that before.” If it was possible, this seemed to induce more anguish into his expression. 

Steve hadn’t. He wracked his brain trying to find any time, any significant moment when he would have said anything like that and came up with nothing. “I haven’t. Buck, I don’t know what’s going on. Explain it to me.” There was a moment of tension, before Bucky’s shoulders slipped. So did his grip on the knife, now hanging loosely at his side.

“Then why did you--” He made a gesture, that it took Steve a few moments to realise was towards the broken electronics on the floor. 

“I didn’t. I didn’t know they were there.” He was cursing himself for that. How could he not know someone had been in his place? How could he be that distracted? He was better than this. "I'll help you comb the place if it'll help."

Bucky searched him for a minute, looking him over once, twice, three times. Apparently satisfied that Steve was both Steve and didn’t know about the surveillance, he fell into the chair like a marionette with his strings cut. After a minute, he shut and opened his eyes several times then just repeated the word “Fuck". Steve wanted to put his arms around him, but he was still wound tight and he wasn't sure if he'd explode again if he tried to put his hands on him.

Instead, Steve took the time to put things away while listening to him and grab an ice pack for his head. It was only when he sat down on the floor with an ice pack that Bucky looked back to him again. “I should leave.”

Steve’s heart suddenly kicked into overdrive, “Do you want to leave?”

Bucky shook his head, “Your head--”

“--is hard. You were always telling me that.” Steve tried to smile and winced slightly. “It’s alright.”

Bucky shot him a look of complete disbelief, “I punched you in the head.”

“I’ve had worse.” It was true. He’d taken a lot of punches in his time, long before he had a body to compensate for it. He was more worried it was a sign of Bucky’s mind deteriorating further rather than getting better and a big warning that he needed help. They needed to talk. Food, rest, then talk. 

 Steve got up. “Help me clean up and I’ll make dinner.”

 

* * *

 

They made pasta, because it was quick, simple and filling. Steve had tried to insist on making it by himself, but Bucky had said that despite having scrambled brains and a homocidal hair trigger, he was willing to bet he could still cook better than Steve. He was right.  Bucky still wasn’t talkative while they worked, but he brushed against his side a few times and returned a single soft smile before telling him to stop mooning and get back to chopping. Maybe he just needed something to get his mind off of it all.

“They’re watching you,” Bucky said, when they were finally sitting at the table.

“I saw that,” Steve grimaced. He still didn't know what to do with that.  

Bucky cut right to the heart of the matter, “Do you still trust them?” He was watching his reactions.

Steve tried not to squirm under the uncomfortable scrutiny. “I trust them to do the right thing,” He said.

“Not the same as trusting them, though.” Bucky replied, “Is it?”

It really wasn’t. 

 

* * *

 

After dinner, they put the couch cushions on the floor. Steve had tried to insist that Bucky take the bed, but he’d point blank refused.

They set up the cushions and sat on them together, the radio on softly in the background as they sat quietly in the calm before the storm. Somewhere around seven, Bucky had dropped off to sleep with a book in his hands. It would be 2013, it could be 1941 and it wouldn’t have mattered at that moment. They were home, they were together and this was all he’d really hoped for after the war. To be sitting in their apartment, listening to the radio and safe. He may have wanted other things, but when he’d pictured After The War, this was the image he’d had in mind. Albeit, with a few differences, but the important things were there.

If the universe was willing to give him another miracle, Steve would take it and be grateful. He would make it work. He wouldn’t waste it.

 

* * *

 

 Steve woke up a little before four in the morning unable to remember how or when he’d fallen asleep. His bones ached a little from lying on the floor and the place was still dark, but it was quiet.

Too quiet. 

Bucky wasn’t next to him. The book and another kitchen knife were lying where he had been. It wasn’t until he heard the familiar sound of retching that he realised where Bucky was and what had likely woken him up.

Stretching his legs, Steve found that the tired burn from the night before had faded and he’d been left with nothing more than a slightly cramping ache from the floor. A little creaking bones wasn't the end of the world. He moved into the kitchen area and poured a glass of water, but Bucky didn’t come back out. Caught between wanting to allow him his privacy and wanting to barge in and make sure he took fluids, Steve stood in the kitchen for a few more minutes before deciding it was better to ask for forgiveness than permission when it came to this. Bucky had always taken that view, if he'd bothered to say sorry at all.

The bathroom door was open. Bucky was on his knees in front of the toilet, pressing his forehead to the seat with his eyes wound shut. It was probably nightmares. Steve would be lying if he’d said he hadn’t spent a few nights like this recently, though his own were fading as time went on. He wondered if the memory of the howling scream and the train was what was keeping Bucky up too.

“Hey,” Steve said, his voice sounding too loud for the apartment at that time of the morning.

“Hi,” Bucky replied hoarsely, without opening his eyes. There was a thin film of sweat on his skin and he looked pale, but his breathing was evening out. It was a good sign.

“There’s water,” Steve said, putting the glass on the floor beside him. He wasn’t sure if he should leave or stay, so he hovered at the door way in case Bucky called him back. He wouldn’t go back to sleep now. He never slept for this long anymore.

“You shouldn’t,” Bucky started before retching again, but nothing came up. He pressed his metal hand to his forehead, maybe to cool himself down and Steve watched again as it recalibrated. Idly, he thought it looked like a sleeker version of Stark technology but he wasn't sure Tony would appreciate the comparison.

 “You don’t have to drink it,” Steve shrugged, trying for nonchalance. Bucky had never let him wallow and he owed it to him not to be fazed by this.

“I don’t mean--” Bucky shook his head, before picking up the water and draining half of it much to Steve's confusion. “You might’ve had a concussion. You shouldn’t have slept.”

“Oh,” Steve blinked, then realised that was probably true. He had a tendency to forget about that kind of basic medical etiquette these days, along with parachutes and normal portion sizes. He shrugged. “Supersoldier, remember? I’m part of a very exclusive club that can sleep after being knocked on the head and not worry about it.”

Bucky held the glass to his forehead with a hefty sigh, “Getting less exclusive these days.”

“Do you think that’s how you survived?” The words were out of Steve’s mouth before he could rein them in. He wanted to ask, yes, and they were on a tight timetable but he didn’t want to ask here. But Bucky was here, he was calm and he had brought it up. There might never be a good time. “Do you think Zola was that close?” If that was true then Bucky either hadn’t known at the time or he’d kept it hidden. If he’d felt the need to hide that, Steve didn’t know what to make of that.

Bucky blew out a breath and fell back into a sitting position against the tub, “Best guess is it’s a cheap knockoff. Don’t work right, like the rest of me these days.”

Steve refused to give into that bait, “I know you don’t want to talk about it but if I’m going to help you, I need to know what I’m against.”

Bucky blinked, but didn’t argue. “If you want me to get out, just say so.” “I don’t want you to--” Steve started, but Bucky cut him off.

“You won’t want me here after. I wouldn't want to be here,” Bucky gave a dark toned laugh and tapped the side of  his head, “If I could help it.”

Steve shook his head, “When are you going to get it through that thick skull that I’m not going anywhere? You tell me to go, I’ll go but I’ll fight you on it first and I'd bet on me winning.”

To his surprise, Bucky cracked a smile. “Same old Steve.”

Steve returning the smile as he sat himself down next Bucky. He knocked his knee against Bucky. “Just changed by hair this time.”

“You look good,” Bucky replied, then sighed heavily when Steve didn't respond. “I, I’ve got some files, but they don’t span enough time to confirm anything and I don’t know how much of what’s in my skull was put there or is the result of what was put there or what.”

“All we need is a starting place,” Steve said, in what he hoped was a reassuring tone. “We’ll work from there.”

Bucky nodded and said a few words again that he didn’t understand. He must have read Steve’s face this time though, because he presumably repeated himself. “Winter Soldier.”

“That doesn’t mean anything to me,” Steve admitted. 

“It’s me. Or what I was, he -- I -- it feels different in my head,” He waved his hand, forgoing trying to explain it. “It’s -- shit.” His voice cracked and for a moment, Steve thought he was going to retch again.

“Buck--”

“Don’t make me do this,” Bucky said, leaning his head back and swallowing hard. His eyes fluttered shut and he breathed deep. He could hear a wetness that made him think that he was struggling to hold onto himself enough not to bawl. “Don’t make me look you in the face and tell you I’ve killed people for the fucking Nazi’s. I thought -- no, I didn’t fucking know how to _think_ properly but I think I thought I was doing something _good_. Like the war never ended and I just kept going and trying to -- it was all a lie. ”

“We’ll get them,” Steve promised, soft and solemn. “The people who did this, we’ll find them and we’ll bring them down. With or without SHIELD.”

“What about Captain America?” There was a slight bitterness to the words and oh, he knew that tone. That was the mocking tone of stealing his costume for the flagpole and asking why no one seemed to be able to wrangle a glorified showgirl in an army base full of highly trained professionals. 

“With or without him too,” Steve said. “Come on, I’m making breakfast.”

* * *

 

It was during cooking that Steve’s mind made the connection.

If Bucky was speaking Russian, then Clint may have been right. Natasha was Russian and had worked in intelligence. He didn’t know all the details, but he knew that they’d used her and she’d defected. That they had done something to her mind. If this was Russian technology or even the same group, Natasha would have insight.  It was time to bring her into this.

 **Steve:** What do you know about winter soldier?

 

* * *

 

They resorted to the mindlessness of early morning television to eat breakfast. The nightmare seemed to have broken the ice. and there was less tension between them. Or maybe Bucky didn't like keeping things from him any more than Steve did and that was a cause of tension. He didn't know exactly what winter soldier was, but he knew one thing: he was looking up what happened to Arnim Zola first chance he got. If he was going to start this, he could start at the beginning and it began with him. Hopefully, by then, Natasha would be back and would be willing to either provide some insight on winter soldier or look into it.

He took a shower and went out for his run alone. He'd asked Bucky to come if he wanted, but his response had been to look down at the t-shirt and his arm and just raise an eyebrow. He wasn't sure he liked the fact that Bucky could present an argument with just that, but he supposed he had a point. He'd just take a quick run, come back and go stock his cupboards for a supersoldier and a probably sort of a supersoldier. And Kate, he'd need to get his keys off of her as well. 

The place was pretty quiet, with a few early morning joggers around. He had noticed two consistent ones, a woman in variations of pink who always seemed to be talking to someone he couldn’t see (probably on the phone) while she ran and another man, whose jogging patterns suggested military. Steve tended to avoid people on his route most days, just because running was something he did to get away from the noise of the world but he noticed them. He filled up a few bags of whatever he could even vaguely remember Bucky liking, feeling pangs of nostalgia for doing the shopping for their place in Brooklyn and feeling glad that he wasn't counting out the money on every purchase. He managed to catch Kate before she left on her shift and she returned his key, with a friendly welcome home. 

It was then that he heard noises coming from behind the door. Steve's stomach dropped; Bucky had seemed so much better this morning. It would be terrible if he walked in and he was freaking out. Unless he wasn't freaking out and someone had tried to come in while Steve was gone to replace those bugs. 

"Is everything okay?" Kate asked. Maybe she could hear the ruckus.

"Yeah, it's fine," Steve tried his best showman smile, "Just a friend working out some issues."

"If you're sure," She said.

Steve made sure to wait until the door was shut before he opened up his own apartment, unsure of what exactly he was going to find. The place was wrecked, but he could clearly see the cause as soon as he walked in: Natasha and Bucky were locked into a stand off, gun to gun and neither turned to look at him as he entered. He didn’t know what possibly could have happened in the last forty-five minutes to cause this but it didn’t look like it was going to diffuse itself either. He shut the door behind him and put the bags on the floor, deciding not to treat this as an incursion so much as a mix up until proven othrwise.

“Natasha,” He said, pouring in as much of a question mark as he could into her name. As much as he was glad to see her, he had to wonder how much of this had to do with what he’d texted her.

“Steve,” She said, not moving her eyeline from Bucky. The gun was trained on a kill shot.

But then, so was Bucky’s. “Steve,” He echoed.

“So now everyone knows who I am,” Steve said, looking between the two of them expectantly. “Does anyone want to tell me what’s going on?”

“ _That’s_ Winter Soldier” Natasha inclined her head towards Bucky.

“He knows that,” Bucky said, managing to sound both angry and indignant before his eyes flicked to Steve. “You told her?”

“He’s aware that there’s a soviet assassin watching morning cartoons on his sofa?” Natasha interrupted before he could get a word out, with her voice dripping with skepticism.

“You’ve met Steve,” Bucky countered. “What part of your experiences with him lead you to believe he has any sense of self preservation?”

Natasha bobbed her head, seemingly conceding that particular point.

Steve wanted to argue that, he had plenty of self preservation skills but he also knew his limits and lack of them better than anyone else. He took a few slow steps towards Bucky, “Buck, put the gun down.” He tried to keep his voice level, just in case he wasn’t as in control as he seemed. He didn't look as lost as he had yesterday but he wasn't as sharp as he had been against AIM in New York either.  He should have just explained the situation to Natasha when she came back. He'd blame it on the early morning, but honestly, he just wanted to find enough answers that he could help and not feel so _useless_.

“She’s pointing a gun at me,” Bucky pointed out, but he at least tore his eyes away from Natasha to look at Steve. 

“I can see that,” Steve said dryly. “Let me try this another way. Natasha Romanoff, meet Bucky Barnes. I know it’s tempting and you wouldn't be the first person who wanted to, but try not to shoot him.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I would like to thank [Emily](http://drop-deaddream.tumblr.com) the inclusion of Rumlow and the inspiration for what he'll be like. There's also a blink and you'll miss it reference to [Penny's meta](http://thunderboltsortofapenny.tumblr.com/post/93726812479/hey-so-i-have-a-question-you-may-or-may-not-be) too on tumblr too.
> 
> I'm [djemso](http://djemso.tumblr.com) there too!


	6. we were young in a world that was so tired

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A hero, a spy and an ex-assassin sat down to tea.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, despite it being over three months, this is not dead. I did hit a major case of writers block, which was worked through with the amazing orbingarrow who has been a friend of mine for many years and still inspires me. I would like to thank her for all her help, as she both beta read this and helped it get written. I would also like to say thank you to people who waited patiently, who left comments and kudos and comments at my [tumblr](http://djemso.tumblr.com). You guys are the best.

A hero, a spy and an ex-assassin sat down to tea. Apparently coffee was too tense for this situation.

 

Though neither Barnes nor -

( _the current, ex, one of many, this would be an excellent time for his faulty memory to work well enough to supply him with his own backstory because he didn’t want to be in a room with_ two _people who knew things about his history that he didn’t_ )

\- the _current_ Black Widow were willing to put their weapons aside, they had conceded to lower them enough to take up their respective seats. The Widow had the better vantage point. Barnes held the better escape route. He could count four more routes out, if he were willing to break the window and a fifth if Steve didn’t need to be forcibly removed from the situation. But why would Steve break the habit of a century and not be right in the middle of trouble? Of course, if Steve were capable of doing the safe option, there wouldn’t be a spy and an assassin on his chairs while he tried to remember how to make tea while unsubtly watching them both. That look would have been more appropriate if there were two armed bombs instead of two people there. There again, something niggled at the periphery of his mind about little girls and weapons.

Barnes did not enjoy how the Widow was looking at him. It was unnerving. Steve looked at him like he knew everything about him (which he did not, not even everything Barnes knew of himself and most of his information was outdated by a few generations) and he still thought the world of him most of the time, with a few startled moments of concern. The Widow looked like she was cataloguing, adding to what she already knew and looking for weakness. He’d gotten complacent and loose. He shouldn’t have. He should have realised he would only have so much time to play house before his debts came waltzing in. His debts rarely looked so dangerous as this.

His hand twitched for more than the knife he wanted to be holding when Steve appeared, suddenly setting down tea as if this were a civil conversation among colleagues. Perhaps he was trying to be diplomatic. The thought of Steve trying to be diplomatic startled a laugh from him, which caused him to clamp his jaw shut. The Widow seemed startled, but only for a moment. She looked curious, damn her. If she didn’t know by now that Steve was more likely to get into a fight than diffuse one because he was a stubborn mule, he would not be the one to tell her.

Steve just looked annoyed. “What?”

(“What?” Steve, ninety pounds and change, staring at him from the floor like the world’s angriest teenager despite his youth. His arms crossed, shoulders back and body language looking like he was about to demand he fight him for -- _something_ \--)

Barnes blinked the image away, shaking his head slightly as if it would make it clearer. Steve had never liked being laughed at, whether he was six or twenty-six. The problem was that he looked a bit like a puffed up bird when he got angry, which had always made both Bucky and whoever he was in this skin these days want to laugh. He could’ve bit his lip bloody from trying not to let the noise out, because if he laughed, Rogers would then be more obstinate and prodding. Besides, laughter was detrimental to observing the Widow and her actions. He was absolutely not sniggering. Hardened ex-assassins don’t _snigger_. He’d seen enough movies to know that.

“Buhck-ee,” the Widow sounded out the word into its syllables with dramatic flair. “Bucky Barnes.” She gave him a look up and down as if she had not been cataloguing him the entire time, then gave a calculated smirk. “He looks different without the tights.”

Barnes couldn’t help it. He rolled his eyes. He knew she was looking for a response and he’d just handed her one, but he knew what she was talking about too. He had seen the pictures in Brooklyn of Captain America’s sidekick, first at the bakery and then seemingly all over, even in the graffitti. He was relatively sure that he had, no matter who he had been, never said ‘Gee whiz, Cap!’. Since the stories conflicted, he wasn’t sure what to believe but if he had ever sounded like that, he was more removed from himself than he had ever imagined.

Then a single look at Steve rolling his eyes as well told him that he was right to be skeptical. It was likely they were bullshit.

The slight increase in the Widows smile told him she knew what he was thinking. She _was_ assessing reactions and he had played right into her hands. Spies could be so frustrating.

The Widow broke the silence. “Who are you?”

Barnes frowned indignantly. She had not come here for a history lesson. He didn’t answer.

“I know two versions of who you were,” she replied with a note of impatience. “Who are you now?”

Barnes blinked. It wasn’t the question he’d expected but it wasn’t a bad one. Keeping track of himself could be difficult. Some days, even claiming a name felt exhausting enough he didn’t want to leave the bedroom. Others, the ghosts of the soldier in his body felt like it was clamboring to get out and run back to the only life that particular part of him had ever known. He gave the only answer he could give. “I don’t know.”

He expected her to push for an answer. She didn’t.

Instead, the Widow nodded like that was the right answer. He watched her take a deep breath, then blow on her tea. “Do you remember me?” she asked, carefully casual. Too careful.

The question took him off guard. He considered her thoroughly. He was aware of many high level operatives he might encounter on any particular mission, even former ones. She was one of twenty-eight, the Black Widow program, trained for operations from childhood to be the most effective agents for the department. (Which department?) She had rebelled and left. She was a traitor. She was to be brought--

“From what?” Steve interrupted his thoughts.

( _She wasn’t a mission. Shut up._ )

It was like trying to retrieve a dream in the morning, grasping as it faded even more out of reach. She didn’t respond, and Steve’s attention was drawn to him. _Don’t look at me, Pal._ The thought ghosted through his mind. _I don’t have any answers._ These little patterns of speech were on the tip of his tongue the longer he was around Steve. But they were just echoes. They would give Steve so much hope and it was hope he was sure it would be dashed. He didn’t want to hurt him. That was the last thing he wanted.

“No,” Barnes sighed.

The Widow nodded again. If “I don’t know” and “no” were the answer to every question she had, she was in luck. His brain was half full of I don’t knows, no’s and maybes. He could do this all day.

She waved Steve off, who looked at her very much like this was not over. Instead, she considered him again. “What do you remember?”

He shot her a look, which must have been correctly translated as what the hell kind of question is that because she elaborated, asking what he remembered after Steve had last seen him. It was a complicated question. Things overlapped. There was no way to definitively tell without laying everything out and unless she was proposing she stay there for several days ( _unacceptable threat levels_ ), then he couldn’t do that. He wasn’t even sure he wanted to say anything at all.

( _But there was something…_ )

“Snow.” Barnes said, the word feeling more solid after he said than how it had felt. “A lot of snow.” Snow, then blood, and pain and ice and fucking _Zola_. He became suddenly aware that his breathing had become shallow and now Steve had that fucking terrible look of worry painted over him. It settled an anger in he wasn’t really sure how to deal with. “It’s images and sound. Out of sync. Not making a lot of sense -- I’m not -- ”

“You remember the snow where you fell, then everything becomes patchy,” the Widow interrupted and summed up, in that irritatingly calm way. “Are you still patchy?”

He thought back to when he hadn’t been sure if Steve had been Steve. He had the strangest feeling Steve hadn’t always been Steve or had been there but hadn’t. He was starting to get a migraine. “The longer I’m out, it gets better.”

She moved her head to the side. “Out?”

There it was, was the clamoring feeling of the ice, the tubes, the sheer confusion as things began to go black. It was suffocating, the room slipping away and the urge to run and the urge to will himself still in conflict until he could feel something warm -- _Warm?_ It was Steve’s hand on his. Eyes wide. Concern. Even when trying not to hurt him, he seemed to manage it. This had all been a terrible idea. Steve was looking for a dead man and he couldn’t even be around him without his head being in several decades at once. He swallowed down hard and pulled his hand away, not wanting to associate the memory of Steve’s hand and cryo in his rattling brain. “Cryogenic freezing.”

“You were frozen?” Steve asked, his face looking even worse than usual.

Bucky shot him a look. “You’re one to talk.”

Steve opened his mouth, then shut it with a slightly acquiescing grin. That was the Rogers equivalent of saying you’d gotten him into a corner and while he could fight you on it, it was possible you had a point and he could live with it. It was the closest he ever came to backing down. If he weren’t being observed by a Russian assassin, he might even have smiled at that.

The Widow spoke up. “What changed?”

“Changed?”

“You’re not frozen,” she pointed out, waving her hand over his body. “So something happened to get you here, unless you’re here to kill Captain America.”

It was a toss up between him and Steve as to who gave her the shittiest look. Rogers might’ve won by a fraction, but he’d had the most practice. It cut too close to a nerve for him. Maybe the fear of being near Steve had been justified. He didn’t know if there were codes in his head that meant he really was some kind of bomb. But what happened had been an accident. Hadn’t it?

“I don’t know for sure,” he said, thinking back to the very first memories afterwards. The pounding headache. Feeling as if he was having a heart attack. Being lost, bloody and completely confused.

“You have a theory, though,” she pushed. He understood why but it was really fucking annoying.

“Aliens invaded,” he shrugged, before stumbling over his words.“HYDRA generators went down. I -- there was panic, I -- inability to breathe but then I -- _I_ was on the streets and hell was raining down.”

“HYDRA?” Much to his satisfaction, she seemed perplexed. It appeared she was not completely unflappable.

“Yes,” he said, trying not to sound as if he was gloating. It was perhaps twelve percent effective.

“You’re sure?” she pressed, now leaning forward a fraction. Something had clearly rattled her now as the tension flooded through her, but he wasn’t sure what it was.

“They come with a logo,” he replied, dryly.

Beside him, Steve seemed to notice her uncomfortable look and shifted his attention to her. “What is it?” he asked. Clearly he saw her confusion as a lot less amusing.

“I’ve never seen any evidence of HYDRA’s involvement,” she admitted. She shifted around, clearly thinking things over but never really looking away from him. Involvement in what?

“But you know about something’s involvement,” Steve guessed, and it looked like it landed correctly from the fact she nodded infinitesimally. At least one of them knew what she was talking about.

“Are they the same--”

“I don’t know,” she replied, in a way that seemed to shut down any invitation to further conversation. “But the Winter Soldier has always been seen as a soviet assassin. The weaponry, the hits, there’s nothing tying him elsewhere.”

Oh. Involvement as in _him_. He was out of practice of being spoken about rather than to.

There was something that had been on the edge of his consciousness for some time, a difference in places, rooms ( _red_ ), the girls, little soldiers, soldiers with braids and smiles and willing to destroy each other on command. Names, he knew names...Rebecca? Ag-- _no_ , that was wrong. _Wrong._ His vision cleared to find the the Widow staring back at him, clearly expecting some kind of answer to that one. He didn’t understand it. Too many conflicts.

(He needed resetting-- _No_ \--)

They sat in a silent stalemate and he took a drink of the tea, making a face at the taste.

A beat later, the Widow sat back again. She was clearly trying to regain some of her composure, but there was something there.“What else?”

“I ran.” _Deserter_ , something unpleasant reminded him. “Hid.”

“In Brooklyn,” she said, tone skeptical.

“Plain sight,” he countered. It had been a good plan, until Hawkeye had busted into his place. He’d walked into places with his own poster on the wall and no one had batted an eyelid.

“And now?” she demanded, in the most deceivingly even tone possible. “This isn’t hiding. Captain America is very high profile.”

“I’m done hiding,” Barnes said, surprised by the anger that had slipped in unannounced. He hadn’t decided anything of the sort. But if HYDRA, if the others like it, were still out there, he could spend another century hiding while Steve faced them alone. He didn’t want Steve to face them alone. Steve was dumb enough to try it. Steve was dumb enough to be doing it right now. Suddenly the reason he’d had the urge to hide Steve’s passport when he’d done his once through became apparent. Steve would face anything down alone.

Widow nodded, working her mouth for a moment before addressing them both at the same time. “Say I believe you. I’m going to assume you had a better plan than sitting here and watching cartoons.”

“We were taking it slow,” Steve said, with a hint of defensiveness.

“I don’t trust SHIELD.”

“You trust Steve,” Widow replied, seemingly unphased. Steve, not Captain America.

“He’s a terrible judge of character,” Barnes pointed out, shooting a quick look at Steve’s indignant look.

The Widow smiled, small and bitter. “Take my advice,” she said. “As one former weapon to another. Decide who you can trust case by case.” It took him a moment to realise she wasn’t speaking English. “Decide if it’s worth the risk.”

He looked to Steve, to his apartment, to the couch cushions and he thought of the people at his building who had been kind to him. They would all be targets if -- when -- HYDRA knew he was still alive. They would know, sooner or later. Steve was not subtle. Steve literally carried a target on his back. He'd have to be willing to get in front of it if they did this.

“It’s worth it.”

The Widow stood unexpectedly, and his hand gripped the gun in his other hand. She raised her eyebrows. “Fury plays it loose sometimes, but you-” she looked back to Steve. “You of all people should know he’s trustworthy. If you don’t want to be in a cell until you look as old as you are, you’ll need him.”

Steve, to his side, nodded despite the complicated look. “If there’s anyone we could go to, it’s him. “

“If it’s the wrong move, Steve can pout at him and give one of his famous speeches. You can walk out while everyone is either falling asleep or hypnotised by it,” Widow added, breezily.

“Thanks a lot,” Steve said, standing as well.

“Walk in there as Bucky Barnes with Captain America and you’ll set most your own terms,” the Widow said, her jaw clenching at something. A memory she didn't want either, perhaps. “Be brought in as the Winter Soldier and you’ll have no guarantees of anything other than a trial and if you’re lucky, a comfortable cell.”

If nothing else, it’d probably be a bigger cell than the last one he was in.

 

* * *

 

 The meeting was arranged in a clandestine way, as was the way of spies. They agreed he couldn’t be a walk in -- it was too public.

(“Not that publicity is bad,” the Widow had commented, “Just controlled publicity.”)

Steve would arrange for an early morning meeting with Fury out of the office. Barnes would join Steve on his jogging route and they would be driven to a separate location, where he could be processed.

(He hated the word already.)

He needed to be given a medical, it needed to be confirmed who he was and a new, temporary identity would need to be fabricated. Only then would there be a decision about detainment. However, if there was detainment, Steve was more than ready to throw his considerable weight around.

The following morning, Barnes waited for Steve to come around his last jogging loop and watched as he looped another jogger with a look that even from there looked smug. The jogger did not seem pleased. If you were ever wondering why people punch you, Steve, this would be Exhibit A. Steve slowed down as he reached him, and Barnes handed him a water bottle. Steve’s phone pinged and a car pulled up while he was glugging. He watched as Steve shut his phone off before they got into the car. Maybe he’d gotten a _little_ better at covert. They both slid into the back and Steve put his hand on his knee, giving him an encouraging look.

“I’ll be there the whole time,” he promised, for the fifth time since they’d woken up from interrupted sleep.

He didn’t bother responding.

 

 

* * *

 

The facility looked abandoned, an old stone building with a passage way they were promptly directed to. At the end was a bemused looking man with an eye patch who was watching them wearily as they made their way up towards him.

“Don’t ask for much, do you, Captain?” the man -- Fury, most likely, said.

“What exactly did Natasha tell you?” Steve said, looking utterly out of place in his jogging clothes. Barnes had the shield in his backpack, along with a couple of knives. If they had to fight, they had something there to help.

“That you had a discreet, soft walk in.” Fury’s eye flickered over him, clearly a little irritated. “Looking up old friends?”

“Something like that,” Steve said, meeting his gaze with steel. “Nick Fury, meet James Barnes.”

Fury took a closer look at him, “Relation?”

“No,” Steve said, “Same one.”

“That’s debateable,” Barnes commented.

Steve gave him a look.

( _Pal, if those looks shut me up, it would have worked years ago._ )

“It’s a long story.”

“And it’s going to explain why a dead man  is here?” Fury asked.

“Yes,” Steve nodded, with a confidence Barnes sure as hell didn’t feel.

“Then I think you’d better start talking,” Fury said.

“Long or short version?” Steve asked, completely unintimidated as usual. It’s a pity super serums didn’t add common sense as well as muscles.

“Captain,” There was a sharper tone to it.

“Hydra, possibly in collaboration with Russian intelligence, retrieved -- Sergeant Barnes, who survived the fall. During which time, he went through severe torture and treatment as a prisoner of war and was forced to kill people as an operative known as the Winter Soldier until fighting his way out,” Steve rattled off, barely managing to keep the tremor out of his voice when he was talking about it.

Barnes felt a little detached from it. It had never been summed up so succinctly and he felt as if he should want to flinch at every mention, but he just felt numb to it. Even standing here, it all felt so far away. Even further than most things. 

Fury was silent for a moment before indicating a room with seats, “Long version.”

 

* * *

 

Fury dismissed them almost an hour later to begin the walk in procedure. He said he would do a preliminary debriefing, but if he was found in sound mind and there was evidence of what he claimed, it would be one of many he would be experiencing in the coming time. Apparently, he didn’t have time to do a long debriefing now. He had a call to make.

“Agent Romanoff and I need to have a conversation about what a soft walk in _is_.”

 

* * *

 

 The rest of the day was a blur. Steve was ever present at his side, only disappearing behind the mirrored glass for psychological testing. He could still see in, but couldn’t hear what we being said or see anything but the back of Barnes’ head for an hour. If they were going to make a move, it would be then but that was down from the sheer argument that he simply wait outside until it was over and Steve wasn't about to back down.

The staff had gone through his body with a fine tooth comb, complaining at the lack of ability to do a proper brain scan here but even what they did felt too reminiscent of post-mission protocols and he was having trouble staying in the moment. They marked repaired injuries, tested reflexes, memory. They were fascinated by the arm and spent the majority of an hour fussing over it, with Stark’s name mentioned several times. If people thought he was letting Howard Stark anywhere near his arm after what happened with some of his other inventions, they had another thing coming.

When it was finally over, he sat down with Steve and looked at his watch. Close hours had gone by. He wasn’t surprised that he was starting to feel drained. Steve’s hand rubbing into his shoulder alone was probably worth this, but none of the tension would leave while they were here. When he’d first remembered him, remembered he was gone, he had been so distraught at the thought of never having this again. He was grateful for that, even if he was constantly on alert and looking for signs he was going back into the chamber or for SHIELD to unveil a chair.

He was fucking paranoid.

He shut his eyes and let his breathing even out, but he felt Steve tense only moments later. He wasn’t surprised to see a dark haired woman looking at them both in a calculated way.

“Captain Rogers,” she nodded to Steve.

“Deputy Director Hill,” Steve said, standing to meet her.

She stopped for a moment, opening her mouth then shutting it and reopening it with a renewed decision. “Sergeant Barnes.”

Barnes startled. He hadn’t expected to be addressed at all. He simply gave a nod.

“Obviously, we weren’t prepared for something like this. The Winter Soldier has always been regarded as a bit of a bogeyman.” She didn’t look away from him when she spoke. He was finding most people would either ask for no conversation at all, or speak over him to Steve. He didn’t mind too much. He already felt like he was going to vibrate out of his skin.

Hill continued. “Preliminary tests are backing up some of what you’re claiming, but we’d prefer to do a more comprehensive test at Medical and keep you overnight to observe--”

“I’m staying with him,” Steve interjected. This had been a considered possibility, so they had already decided that.

Hill looked at Steve like she knew damn well how awkward he was going to be. Clearly she knew him, then. “-- as a _compromise_ , we’d like to attach a monitor for tracking and vitals overnight and then you could discretely come down to medical in the morning. Assuming Captain Rogers is able to guarantee control of the situation?”

Steve didn’t even have the sense to look contrite about his assumption. “We’ll be fine.”

“Fine,” he grunted, echoing Steve.

“In the mean time, Captain Rogers mentioned several times that you believe HYDRA and remnants from the Red Room are active,” Hill said, handing him a tablet with the SHIELD logo on it. “Note down locations, names, actions from most recent going backwards as best you can, bring it with you in the morning and we can move on from there.”

 

 

* * *

 

 

 As expected, the apartment was being watched. However, it seemed to be by SHIELD agents and Barnes had expected that much. He imagined it was only by the skin of his teeth (and the might of Captain America tantrum) that was keeping them in a public area. He felt surprisingly panicked at the thought of losing even that sense of freedom, even if deep down he could see why he had long lost the right to it. As he had figured out some time ago, he was selfish so it made sense.

Steve ordered enough food for six and they sat eating in a comfortable, if charged quiet. Steveput down his roll before deciding to talk, but he seemed hesitant. “If you don’t want to do this, you don’t have to.”

Barnes snorted, “Yeah. I do.” Choice really wasn’t an option. He had enough debts to pay and he had come to enjoy having a place to call home. He didn’t want to run again if it could be helped. He wasn't sure it had been an option from the moment he'd been exposed to SHIELD.

“The second you don’t want to…” Steve tried, searching at his face.

He found himself nodding, “Yeah.”

“I’m not going to let anything happen to you,” Steve said, firmly. The unspoken ‘not again’ was so loud that he could practically hear it pinned on the end.

Barnes wanted to assure him. He wanted to explain that had happened on the train was HYDRA’s fault, not his. Or more accurately, his own fault for being blown out of a train carriage. He’d known the risks. He’d wanted to fight back, he’d wanted to be with Steve and he didn’t want to feel like a victim. The more things changed, the more they stayed the same. He didn’t know how to explain to Steve that this felt like following him all over again and he couldn’t help but wonder what the train would be this time and if he was strong enough not to fall again. But then again, if it was between him and Steve, he’d take the fall over and over. He had to know that.

He wanted to explain it, but the words were barely making sense in his tired, addled brain. He’d been stuck between trying to stay present (with Steve) and letting everything just go away for a while (getting checked out) all day and his head ached. Everything felt too big to explain and he wasn’t sure it would wipe that look of grim determination from Steve’s face anyway.

He threw some sesame toast at him instead. It got a chuckle, at least.

It didn’t occur to either of them, sore backs and cricked necks included, that they could just get up and get into bed. In a way, this nostalgia was something to cling to even if he couldn’t remember all of it himself. It still felt familiar. Familiar was often all he’d had these days.

 

 

* * *

 

The tests in the SHIELD building were worse. He’d taken one look at the machine and his heart rate had spiked, his legs felt numb and everything went quiet long enough for him to come back to himself sitting in another room. They could work with some preliminary scans and discuss sedation for a better scan next time. They were still working out what it was he was putting into his body to sustain it, what he’d brought with him and what he’d spent a year trying to deal with himself. They didn’t want any adverse reactions.

(The memory lingered of choking, technicians dropping to the floor. They were inconsequential.)

He didn’t want to be drugged. He was a little (scared) worried that if he did, he’d wake up coming out of cryo and this would have all been an insane dream.

 

* * *

 

 

“People are making bets that Rogers has finally found himself a friend.”

Barnes did not jump. He absolutely in no way jumped. He momentarily misaligned his body with the chair.

Black Widow was quiet on approach and smiled like knives. It was impressive and irritating, in almost equal measure. 

“I have friends,” Steve protested.

“If they say things like ‘back in my day’, they don’t count.” The Widow was standing at the doorway of the office where he and Steve had been left with an absurd amount of coffee and cookies. She came forward enough to take one.

“Back in my day, we respected our elders,” Steve said, sarcasm dripping through it not enough to stop Barnes from snorting. Steve Rogers only respected you as long as you respected others, no matter what age you were. No one got a free pass from his antagonism. He was almost sure, with that usual faint echo, he’d been warned off spending time with such a trouble maker.

Widow smirked, “You know, if it does turn out you’re not trying to kill us all, this could be fun.”

“Don't,” Steve said, in that warning tone.

“Relax,” she shrugged her shoulders back. “I think they’re on board with it. At least enough that they won’t arrest you yet.”

“That’s comforting,” Barnes said.

“I wouldn’t worry,” she said. “There are still people who think I’m going to snap and kill them all and I only get the desire once in a while. Or if I get stuck with Rumlow.”

“Soldiers and spies,” Steve elaborated, which he imagined was for his benefit .

“Competitive misogynists and the women who beat their asses,” the Widow amended.

“If you’re having trouble,” Steve started, before being cut off by the Widow’s laughter.

“Are you offering to be my knight in star spangled armour?” She smiled, soft and genuine and human for a moment. It took him off guard how different that could be. “I can deal with it.”

Steve looked like he wanted to press further, but took a breath. “If you’re sure.” 

She took a step backward with a prim nod. He could understand that. Sometimes, how genuine Steve could be did feel too intense.  “Things to do.” She looked directly at him and said, “Go get ‘em, tiger."

Barnes looked at Steve, who just shrugged. She was incredibly strange, even for an operative.

 

* * *

 

 It was dark out by the time Fury had dismissed them both.

His identity card had his name on it, ‘James Buchanan’ with adjusted numbers for date of birth. There was currently a tracking chip attached to his arm, but he was allowed to leave. He was sure the agents watching the building had replaced the bugs. The idea of running was starting to look more appealing. Instead, he had appointments for the rest of the week for debriefings and psychotherapists, along with an appointment in three days with Doctor Banner who Steve insisted he would like. He had some knowledge of the super serums and what they could do. There would be a check in roughly a week from now and if there were no problems, they’d turn the tracking device off only to be activated in emergencies.

(He’d heard that one before.)

He barely paid any attention as people got in and out of the elevator, until someone addressed Steve with something other than ‘Hi’ or ‘Cap’.

“We got to stop meeting like this,” said the voice, and for a moment he could feel heat discomfort. His chest was tight and the elevator seemed incredibly small, cold, loud. The voice was familiar but -- _fuck_.

"Rumlow." Steve tensed, then let his shoulders drop a little. “I’m not going to be doing training with you guys for a while. Something's come up."

The man looked back at Steve curiously. “No sweat.”

As if he could tell Barnes was looking at him, the man turned around and something in him echoed enough that his heart rate slammed up. Whatever he was feeling appeared to be mutual. The man looked almost surprised, though he recovered quickly into a cutting smile. Barnes felt sick to the stomach.

( _Shit, shit, shit, where did he know that voice from?_ )

Steve cut into his thoughts, his voice cutting through the panic buzzing loudly through his brain. “This is us,” he indicated the floor as Barnes trailed after him, trying to figure out what the hell was happening.

He didn’t feel good. Images, noises, it was like coming out of the ice again and everything was too bright and too loud. His stomach kept flipping. Darkness crept in at the sides of his vision and he struggled violently against letting it show. They made it halfway into the parking garage under SHIELD before, without any other warning, he emptied his stomach over someone’s car lights.

 

* * *

 

Inside the elevator, Brock Rumlow changed his destination and pulled out his phone. As irritating as it was to cater to the whims of a super soldier when he wanted to be out there, things had definitely gotten a little more interesting if he’d read that right. It could be dangerous. If it remembered, that could put a lot in jeopardy but if it didn’t -- well, that could be fun. He dialed the number and waited impatiently.

Pierce’s secretary picked up, voice with the usual clipped tone of someone too frazzled for words and trying to deal with too many people. She said he was in a meeting of the utmost importance, but he was welcome to leave a message for him and he’d get back to him at his earliest convenience.

“Sure,” Rumlow smiled wolfishly, as it appeared no one was coming back up after him. “Can you let him I’ve located a missing asset? He’ll know what I mean.”


End file.
